Effects of sleep deprivation and prolonged driving on a subsidiary auditory reaction time

ELEVEN SUBJECTS WERE EMPLOYED IN AN EXPERIMENT TO DETERMINE THE EFFECT ON A SUBSIDIARY AUDITORY REACTION TIME (RT) OF DIFFERENT FACTORS INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL TO 3 HR OF CAR DRIVING. THE CONDITIONS WERE: A--DRIVING IN DAYLIGHT, B--DRIVING IN DARKNESS, C--DRIVING AFTER ONE NIGHT WITHOUT SLEEP. THERE WAS A SIGNIFICANT INCREASE OF RT OVER THE DRIVING DURATION, BUT THERE WERE NO DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE CONDITIONS. A COMPARISON WITH TWO OTHER EXPERIMENTS IN THE SAME SERIES POINT TO THE APPARENT SIGNIFICANCE OF MONOTONY OF DRIVING AS A CASUAL FACTOR IN DRIVING-FATIGUE ACCIDENTS. EVIDENCE WAS PRESENTED WHICH SUGGESTS AN INADEQUACY OF THE TEST-DRIVING-RETEST DESIGN IN FATIGUE AND DRIVING STUDIES. AN INTERSUBJECT COMPARISON POINTS TO BOTH VULNERABILITY TO MONOTONY AND SLEEP DEPRIVATION AS FACTORS IN THE INTERSUBJECT VARIABILITY IN SLEEP DEPRIVATION EXPERIMENTS. /AA&P/

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