The Effects of Acute Sleep Restriction on Adolescents' Pedestrian Safety in a Virtual Environment

Abstract

Purpose Over 8,000 American adolescents ages 14-15 require medical attention due to pedestrian injury annually. Cognitive factors contributing to pedestrian safety include reaction time, impulsivity, risk-taking, attention, and decision-making. These characteristics are also influenced by sleep restriction. Experts recommend adolescents obtain 8.5 hours of uninterrupted sleep each night, but most American adolescents do not. Inadequate sleep may place adolescents at risk for pedestrian injury. Method Using a within-subjects design, fifty-five 14- and 15-year-olds engaged in a virtual reality pedestrian environment in two conditions, scheduled a week apart: sleep-restricted (4 hours sleep previous night) and adequate sleep (8.5 hours). Sleep was assessed using actigraphy and pedestrian behavior via four outcome measures: time to initiate crossing, time before contact with vehicle while crossing, virtual hits/close calls and attention to traffic (looks left and right). Results While acutely sleep restricted, adolescents took more time to initiate pedestrian crossings, crossed with less time before contact with vehicles, experienced more virtual hits/close calls and looked left and right more often compared to when adequately rested. Results were maintained after controlling for age, gender, ethnicity and average total sleep duration prior to each condition. Discussion Adolescent pedestrian behavior in the simulated virtual environment was markedly different, and generally more risky, when acutely sleep restricted compared to adequately rested. Inadequate sleep may influence cognitive functioning to the extent that pedestrian safety is jeopardized among adolescents capable of crossing streets safely when rested. Policy decisions might be educated by these results.

The effect of sleep restriction on neurobehavioural functioning in normally developing children and adolescents: Insights from the attention behaviour and sleep laboratory

“…Inter-reviewer agreement for inclusion was good (Kappa coefficient = 0.65). Final selection included a total of 13 studies [12,13,[40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50]. All studies were published in English language.…”

“…Overall, the studies included participants aged from 6 to 16 years. The age ranges in seven studies were from 11 to 16 years [40][41][42][43]45,48]. Males and females were equally represented in all samples.…”

“…Most studies [13,[40][41][42][43][44][45][46]48] employed a within-subjects design in that NBF was compared within the same participants before and after sleep restriction (see Table 1). Several of the within-subjects designs were cross-over designs [40,42,45,47,48] in that participants experienced other conditions in addition to sleep restriction in a counterbalanced order [40][41][42]45,47,48].…”

Head-Mounted Virtual Reality and Mental Health: Critical Review of Current Research (Preprint)

“…Three VR studies were identified regarding sleep disorders. Targeted disorders included: Acute sleep restrictions in adolescent teens [73], obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome in children [74], and narcolepsy or idiopathic hypersomnia in children [75]. While sleep disorders can affect well-being this was not the concern of each study.…”

Identification of predictors and moderators of weight-related behaviors in college students.

“…In fact, some of the world's most devastating disasters have been the result of sleep loss (Colten & Altevogt, 2006). Several studies have linked insufficient sleep in older adolescents and young adults to safety hazards such as pedestrian accidents (Davis, Avis & Schwebel, 2013), motor vehicle accident (Pizza et al, 2010), workplace and home accidents (Dahl & Lewin, 2002), as well as school violence-related behaviors (Hildenbrand, Daly, Nicholls, Brooks-Holliday, & Kloss, 2013).…”