Psychomotor Vigilance Performance Neurocognitive Assay Sensitive to Sleep Loss

Psychomotor Vigilance Performance Neurocognitive Assay Sensitive to Sleep Loss 

JILLIAN DORRIAN, NAOMI L. ROGERS, AND DAVID F. DINGES University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. 

A wide variety of tests have been used in sleep deprivation experiments ranging from simple tests of reaction time (e.g., Refs. 1,2,13) to complex tasks of higher-order cognitive capacity and PFC function (e.g., Refs. 9,14,15). The diversity of performance tests available for use in performance testing leads to a fundamental question What are the criteria for an effective neurocognitive assay under conditions of sleep deprivation, where effective means theoretically meaningful, empirically sensitive, and practically useful  

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