Chapter 18 Cognitive Fatigue and Complex Decision Making Under Prolonged Isolation and Confinement

Abstract

Cognitive fatigue and subjective state were assessed in four healthy subject (three males and one female), confined for a period of 60 days in a hyperbaric chamber stimulating a space station environment. They were required to carry out daily a working memory/decision-making test, simulating the management of the levels of contaminants present in a spacecraft atmosphere. Information about a set of contaminants is presented on a 'reference screen.' This has to be memorized, then used to make decisions about the need for corrective action across a sequence of four 'status screens.' Subjects may check back to the reference information at any time. A low error rate was emphasized in the instructions and training. In addition to error rate, performance was also measured in terms of the time taken to make decisions and checks of reference screens (decision time and check time). Subjective measures were also made of workload and environmental resources (personal control and support), levels of anxiety and fatigue before the task, and cognitive effort expended during the task. The search for decrements during the second half of the isolation period was complicated by evidence of a continued learning process during the first half, probably because of insufficient practice before isolation. Learning curves (negative exponential functions) were fitted to the data points for the first half of the isolation period, and residuals between predicted and observed data for the second four weeks were analyzed. All subjects showed increases in decision time and check time during the last weeks of isolation, with one subject also showing an increase in errors. Workload levels were reported as moderate, but varied across the four subjects, The same was true for resources. Anxiety was low and relatively stable over the entire 60-day period, but fatigue levels were elevated during the second half. This was particularly true for the two subjects who maintained the required low error rate. Effort was also quite stable, through it tended to follow changes in work demands and fatigue. Individual subjects are seen to adapt to the stress of prolonged isolation in different ways. Two subjects maintained low error rates under increasing subjective demands by additional cognitive effort and slowing of performance. The other two subjects exhibit more widespread decrement, including high error rates, without increase in subjective demands. The analysis of individual patterns of adaptation is recommended as a way of understanding and predicting the impact of isolation and confinement during spaceflights.