Changes in the Performance of a Synthetic Work Task as a Function of Age, Gender, and Sleep Deprivation

Abstract

A 34-hour sleep-loss study was conducted as part of a larger Department of Transportation-Federal Aviation Administration (DOT/FAA) fatigue research program to assess the ability of traditional and innovative measures to track drowsiness and fatigue. Twenty-seven subjects were grouped by age and gender, and randomly paired for weekend testing. Performance testing using a synthetic work task was completed 4, 10, 16, 22, 28, and 34 hr after waking at 6 am. The pattern of significant effects indicated that performance changes were associated with age, gender, and sleep loss. Significant age differences were found across sessions for a number of measures. Generally, the younger group demonstrated better overall performance than the older group; however, the performance of the younger group declined across sessions while the older group's performance remained relatively stable. Like previous research, the complex, time-sharing, synthetic work-task may have contributed to the age group differences. Two simple cognitive and psychomotor tasks also used in this study showed a significant age-related difference in only one measure. A better tolerance to the sleep-loss condition may explain the stable performance of the older group across sessions. Gender differences occurred during the latter sessions for several measures. The younger female group demonstrated the most significant decline in task performance across the last three sessions, presumably due to sleep loss-induced fatigue.