The sensitivity of a palm-based psychomotor vigilance task to severe sleep loss

Abstract

In this study, we evaluated the sensitivity of a 5-min personal digital assistant-psychomotor vigilance test (PDA-PVT) to severe sleep loss. Twenty-one participants completed a 10-min PVT-l92 and a 5-min PDA-PVT at two hourly intervals during 62 h of sustained wakefulness. For both tasks, response speed and number of lapses (RTs > 500) per minute significantly increased with increasing hours of wakefulness. Overall, standardized response speed scores on the 5-min PDA-PVT closely tracked those of the PVT-192; however, the PDA-PVT was generally apsociated with more lapses/minute. Closer inspection of the data indicated that when the level of sleep loss and fatigue became more severe (i.e., Day 3), the 5-min PDA-PVT was not quite as sensitive as the 10-min PVT-l92 when 2-to 10-sec foreperiods were used for both. It is likely, however, that the observed differences between the two devices was due to differences in task length. Thus, the findings provide further evidence of the validity of the 5-min PDA-PVT as a substitute for the 10-min PVT 192, particularly in circumstances in which a shorter test is required and/or the PVT-l92 is not as practical.

Validation of sleep-2-Peak: A smartphone application that can detect fatigue-related changes in reaction times during sleep deprivation

“…One concern about the s2P tool was its shorter duration (3 min in this study), as compared to the standard, 10-min RT tests that have usually been reported in previous research Basner & Rubinstein, 2011;Lamond et al, 2005Lamond et al, , 2008Roach et al, 2006;Thorne et al, 2005). This choice of a shorter duration was deliberate, to address many critiques that the 10-min PVT is impractically long for many contexts Basner & Rubinstein, 2011;Lamond et al, 2005Lamond et al, , 2008Roach et al, 2006;Thorne et al, 2005). The duration of an alertness test is crucial, since even severely sleep-deprived individuals will be able to compensate by increasing effort, which will result in adequate performance.…”

“…The results indicated that s2P is a valid tool for differentiating alert from sleepy states in the same individual, and that this tool is just as sensitive as the classic PVT to track fatigue-related changes during extended wakefulness and sleep loss conditions. One concern about the s2P tool was its shorter duration (3 min in this study), as compared to the standard, 10-min RT tests that have usually been reported in previous research Basner & Rubinstein, 2011;Lamond et al, 2005Lamond et al, , 2008Roach et al, 2006;Thorne et al, 2005). This choice of a shorter duration was deliberate, to address many critiques that the 10-min PVT is impractically long for many contexts Basner & Rubinstein, 2011;Lamond et al, 2005Lamond et al, , 2008Roach et al, 2006;Thorne et al, 2005).…”

“…), the mean RTs on each device were also presented centered on the average performance in the Balert^state. The centering method had previously been used in other validation studies Lamond et al, 2008;Roach et al, 2006). In this case, we again calculated, for each moment, 95 % nonparametric bootstrap confidence intervals based on 1,000,000 samples.…”

“…The main concern in validation studies for PVT-type tasks is to determine whether the new test is as sensitive to effectively detect cognitive decline as the original PVT (Basner & Dinges, 2012;Lamond et al, 2008;Loh et al, 2004;Thorne et al, 2005). To evaluate the ability of s2P to differentiate between the sleep-deprived and alert states of the subjects, the test bouts from 8 AM to 10 PM were averaged to reflect the Balert^state, whereas the test bouts from 12 AM to 6 PM were averaged to reflect Bsleepiness.^A similar cutoff had been used in previous studies and is based on research showing that performance of the PVT usually begins to decline after 16 h awake (Van Dongen, Maislin, Mullington, & Dinges, 2003).…”

“…More recently, efforts have been made to create portable, shorter, and more affordable assessment tools that will offer alternatives to the classic PVT Basner & Rubinstein, 2011;Lamond et al, 2005Lamond et al, , 2008Roach, Dawson, & Lamond, 2006;Thorne et al, 2005). In recent years, smartphones and tablets have offered new opportunities for the development of tasks alternative to the PVT.…”