Thesis
Differentiating Cognitive Processes Based on Outcome Metrics of the Psychomotor Vigilance Test
Washington State University
Master of Science (MS), Washington State University
2017
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/100371
Abstract
The Psychomotor Vigilance Test (PVT) is a 10-minute simple reaction time task that measures sustained attention and is highly sensitive to sleep loss. Performance impairment during sleep loss can be quantified using a host of metrics previously described in the literature, including common metrics such as mean response time and metrics created specifically to describe PVT performance, such as the diffusion model-based signal-to-noise ratio. These metrics differ in their sensitivity to sleep loss, their ability to capture the signal in the tail of the response time distribution, and the portion(s) of the response time distribution they describe well. Based on previous research showing that cognitive processes are not uniformly affected by sleep deprivation, we determined whether there are metric-specific, inter-individual differences in PVT performance. If there are metric-specific, inter-individual differences, whereby an individual may be resilient to sleep loss according to one metric and vulnerable to sleep loss according to another metric, then groups of metrics may capture distinct sets of cognitive processes. A principal component analysis of thirty-eight PVT metrics described in the literature revealed four components. Three components separated primarily due to inter-individual differences in metrics, and the fourth component separated primarily due to differences in temporal profiles. The three components that separated due to inter-individual differences appear to describe response slowing, variability in response times and noise in the fidelity of information processing, and premature responses. These results indicate that even a simple reaction time task requires multiple cognitive processes that may be differentially vulnerable to sleep deprivation. The impairments in distinct sets of cognitive processes can be quantified by using different PVT metrics. These results indicate that some of these metrics are interchangeable, while other metrics are not, and being able to make the distinction helps to inform future experimental and theoretical studies of sleep deprivation and cognition.
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Details
- Title
- Differentiating Cognitive Processes Based on Outcome Metrics of the Psychomotor Vigilance Test
- Creators
- Samantha Marie Riedy
- Contributors
- Hans P. A. van Dongen (Degree Supervisor)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Psychology, Department of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Science (MS), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University; [Pullman, Washington] :
- Identifiers
- 99900525001901842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis