Simple Decision Making at High Altitude

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Abstract
Eight volunteer military subjects were exposed to 428-8 mm Hg atmospheric pressure (15,000 ft) for 48 hours, during which they performed four card-sorting tasks: (1) sorting 90 blank cards into two bins alternately, (2) sorting 96 blank cards into 1G bins sequentially, (3) sorting 96 cards into two bins according to colour of central figure, (4) sorting 96 cards into 16 bins according to colour, shape, size of central figure and presence or absence of a black dot. These tasks were performed after 3 hours, 20 hours, 24 hours, and 45 hours of exposure. The results were as follows: (1) cognitive tasks (tasks 3 and 4) showed a greater decrement at 15,000 ft in speed and accuracy than psychomotor tasks (tasks 1 and 2); (2) complox decision making tasks were more affected than simplo tasks; (3) speed was generally sacrificed to maintain accuracy; (4) the greatest decrement on all tasks occurred at the 3-hour test period, after which performance improved.