Rhythms of Human Performance

Abstract

Humans are diurnal by nature but modern industrialized societies must function throughout the 24 hours of the day. Not only are emergency services required to be able to act at any time, but communications, commerce and industrial processes also never cease their operations. In the military sphere in particular, round-the-clock capability is required. Whereas these processes have been accompanied by an increasing replacement of humans by technology, if only because humans are too slow, expensive, and unreliable, our species still is required to tend such systems and act in relation to the information they give or require. The role of humans has tended to change, therefore, from the that of providing brute strength and even intellectual input to one of vigilance and the minding of machines.