An officer at Air Force Space Command noticed that operators that were fatigued did not seem to perform as well as those operators that were well rested. He was interested if this observation was statistically significant and if added automation could help mitigate any negative effects of fatigue on monitoring and controlling satellites. He designed a study to look into this question. He recruited volunteers willing to participate in a sleep study. Participants would initially be restricted in sleep for a few nights, then would come in and perform tasks in a simulator that were representative of operational tasks. Participants would then be required to sleep 8 hours a night for a few nights, then would come in and perform the tasks in the simulator again. A sub-set of the simulator tasks were at a low level of automation and the remaining simulator tasks were at a high level of automation.a)[4 pts] What is/are the study independent variable(s)

Independent variables are those that act on the dependent variables influencing a result, which can be observed by the researcher. In summary, the independent variable is one that can influence. In the case of the question above, we can see that the number of hours slept by the volunteers influenced the level of tiredness of the volunteers. These two variables were able to influence the level of proactivity and performance of the volunteers in their activities, which allows us to determine that these two variables are the independent variables of the study.