Recommended Experimental Setup
What is the ideal environment for conducting CAAPES assessments?
You should conduct your CAAPES assessments in a comfortable, quiet, and controlled setting with minimal distractions.
What necessary equipment do I need to run CAAPES?
Setting up a CAAPES station will require a desk, chair, full size monitor, desktop computer, keyboard, mouse, HOTUS, and a speaker or headphones.
CAAPES was developed to be used with a HOTAS Joystick (Hands On Throttle-And-Stick) for user input. These can be purchased from major online retailers. CAAPES can also be played with a mouse, but it is recommended to use a joystick for data collection and only use a mouse if conducting basic stress testing or for quick demonstrations of the tasks.
For easy access to purchasing a HOTUS Joystick we have provided a link below:
Most standard bluetooth or wired headphones or speakers will work, but ensure your desktop meets the minimum system requirements for optimal performance. Headphones and/or speakers are important for the participant to hear the auditory set of stimuli for the memory task as well as the auditory feedback reponse to each of the tasks in CAAPES.
How do I determine the number and length of testing iterations for each CAAPES session for my studys protocol?
The length and number of iterations depends entirely on the stressor you are testing and how long it is generally anticipated to capture meaningful performance effects.
Depending on how long you anticipate the stressor to occur should match the amount of time your sessions occur. This means you would need to accommodate the length and number of iterations to match this.
How long do participants need to be familiarized on CAAPES?
A familiarization or practice session is highly recommended before formal data collection and may take an additional 20–30 minutes.
Typically, we advise that participants are trained on CAAPES by being walked through each of the tasks via the instruction screens first. Then practice at least a minimum of one, two-minute iteration of each task individually (i.e., tracking only, math only, manikin only, and memory only).
Once the participant has completed each of these individual task practice sessions, they should complete a session of full CAAPES (Tracking + all three subtasks) for a duration of 20 minutes (in practice mode), to reach optimal difficulty level of performance. This can be done by having the a session of 10 iterations, that are 2-minutes each.