Comparative utility of instruments for monitoring sleepiness‐related performance decrements in the operational environment

Abstract

SUMMAR Y As both military and commercial operations increasingly become continuous, 24-h-perday enterprises, the likelihood of operator errors or inefficiencies caused by sleep loss and/or circadian desynchrony also increases. Avoidance of such incidents requires the timely application of appropriate interventions -which, in turn, depend on the ability to measure and monitor the performance capacity of individuals in the operational environment. Several factors determine the potential suitability of candidate measures, including their relative sensitivity, reliability, content validity, intrusiveness and cumbersomeness/fieldability. In the present study, the relative sensitivity (defined as the ratio of effect size to 95% confidence interval) of several measures to the effects of sleep loss was compared in a sleep restriction experiment, in which groups were allowed 3, 5, 7, or 9 h time in bed (TIB) across seven consecutive nights. Of the measures compared, the Psychomotor Vigilance Test was among the most sensitive to sleep restriction, was among the most reliable with no evidence of learning over repeated administrations, and possesses characteristics that make it among the most practical for use in the operational environment.k e y w o r d s effect size, fieldability, performance measures, sleep loss

Investigation of task performance variations according to task requirements and alertness across the 24-h day in shift workers

“…According to this point of view, sleep deprivation effects on reaction time and trough-put in cognitively more loaded tasks would result from the monotony and lack of novelty that characterize these tasks. In contrast, tasks that are "too complex, too interesting, too variable and, above all, too short" would intrinsically encourage sleep-deprived people to apply compensatory efforts and to perform Balkin et al (2004) found that monotonous tests that demanded constant attention, like psychomotor vigilance tests, were most sensitive to partial sleep deprivation compared to tests involving higher cognitive load, like logical reasoning, problem-solving and decision-making, which were least sensitive (Balkin, Bliese, Belenky, Sing, Thorne, Thomas, et al, 2004).…”

Feedback Blunting: Total Sleep Deprivation Impairs Decision Making that Requires Updating Based on Feedback

“…The PVT is known to be very sensitive to sustained attention deficits due to sleep deprivation. 18,19 Second, to examine the encoding and maintenance of information in WM, we administered a WM scanning task in which memory set items were presented serially ( Figure 1C). Using this procedure, it has previously been shown that the most recent two to three words presented before a probe are accessed more quickly and accurately because they remain in the focus of attention, whereas speed and accuracy of probe responses decline at later serial positions as items lose attentional activation.…”

Investigation into Motor Carrier Practices to Achieve Optimal Commercial Motor Vehicle Driver Performance: Phase I

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