VIGILANT ATTENTION DURING SLEEP DEPRIVATION: INSIGHTS, TASK IMPURITY, AND ALTERNATIVES TO ASSESSMENT

Amanda N. Hudson

doi:10.7273/000007054

Vigilant attention—the sustained focus on tasks, objects, or ideas and associated information—is a base requirement for completing many other cognitive tasks. Vigilant attention is well-known to be impaired during sleep deprivation, making it a frequently studied cognitive outcome across a wide range of sleep/wake conditions and settings. Decades of research have allowed for advances in understanding the biological systems that regulate attention, the extent to which attention can be maintained or preserved, as well as potential genetic factors that contribute towards individual differences in performance resiliency versus vulnerability to sleep loss. Although vigilant attention can be informative when assessed generally, it should also be considered within the context of other types of performance. Nearly any cognitive outcome that may be assessed (e.g., response inhibition, visual search) can be traced back to the necessity for attention as a prerequisite. As such, complex neurobehavioral performance deficits from sleep loss may partially reflect downstream effects of vigilant attention impairment rather than solely a reflection of sleep loss directly impairing the cognitive function under investigation (e.g., inhibition). The obvious relevance of vigilant attention for many job settings, especially those that contribute toward insufficient sleep, makes its assessment a core issue with regards to shiftwork operations. Due to the limitations of traditional computerized attentional tasks (e.g., the Psychomotor Vigilance Test (PVT)) in such operational settings, the ongoing development of technology for real-time, unobtrusive tracking of vigilant attention to gauge alertness and fatigue has grown in popularity. While tasks such as the PVT have been well-validated, further research is needed to determine the utility of these newer, alternative methods of assessing fatigue and attention. While our understanding of vigilant attention continues to improve, many important questions remain unanswered. Most importantly, the underlying mechanisms that contribute to the phenomenon of state instability have yet to be elucidated, demonstrating a substantial gap in the literature that requires further investigation. Further focus on the Ascending Arousal System (AAS) may be the key to not only understanding the sensitivity of vigilant attention during sleep loss, but for discerning how alternative assessment measures capture changes in vigilant attention. Chapter 1 will set the stage with an introduction detailing issues and considerations surrounding vigilant attention investigation and its continued popularity within the field; it will also provide an overview of this dissertation. Chapter 2 will provide a review of our current understanding of vigilant attention, primarily in the context of sleep loss through a peer-reviewed, published review paper. Chapter 3 will present another peer-reviewed, published article containing a comparison between two attentional tasks. In an in-laboratory sleep-deprivation study, a simple one-choice task of vigilant attention is compared against a two-choice task which incorporates decision-making and a need for response inhibition. This task will also be discussed with regard to the importance of task impurity when making inferences about global measures of performance and the role of vigilant attention for other cognitive outcomes. In Chapter 4, a real- time measure of fatigue is compared to a standard laboratory measure of vigilant attention in an overnight study in an operational setting. To conclude, a theoretical discussion of underlying mechanisms that are heavily involved with vigilant attention performance—namely the AAS—will be considered in order to facilitate conversation on state instability and other means of vigilant attention assessment.

VIGILANT ATTENTION DURING SLEEP DEPRIVATION: INSIGHTS, TASK IMPURITY, AND ALTERNATIVES TO ASSESSMENT

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