Effects of Environment and Experience on Underwater Work Performance

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Abstract
Five experienced divers and 15 novice divers completed a complex underwater assembly task and sets of written problems in a water-filled tank and in the ocean. Performance measurements included subtask completion times, problem-solving accuracy, activity analysis, and basic physiological variables. Experienced divers showed essentially unchanged performance between tank and ocean. Novice divers performed slower than the experienced divers in the tank and showed a marked decrement in both assembly time and problem-solving accuracy in the ocean. The results suggest that diving experience improves underwater motor skills rather than work strategy, and that psychological stress was a significant factor even at shallow ocean depths for novices.

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