The Identification of Fatigue Resistant and Fatigue Susceptible Individuals
Abstract
The present study was designed to target two specific areas regarding fatigue. The primary purpose was to begin investigations into possible genetic markers linked to fatigue resistance and fatigue susceptibility. This study provided a resistant or susceptible listing of individuals to a genetics research group that is correlating the rankings to the participant's genetic material. The secondary focus was to follow up past research in order to quantify fatigue's effects on a team performing a complex Command, Control, and Communications (C3) type task. Participants completed two, four-hour training sessions prior to experiencing a 48-hr period of sustained wakefulness. During the testing session participants iteratively took part in various cognitive performance tasks as well as a complex air battle management task (either as an individual or team depending on their assignment). At the end of the 48 hours, performance on all measures showed significant effects of fatigue. In order to determine which participants were fatigue resistant/susceptible, a percent change score was used for the various cognitive tasks in order to rank the participants. The lower the percent change, the more resistant a participant was to fatigue on that task. Participants rankings were then averaged across all of the cognitive tasks in order to produce an overall ranking. When this list is correlated to demographics, the amount of weekday sleep a participant receives significantly impacts the results (r (90) =.36). To remove this potential confounding factor, a second ranking of resistance/susceptibility was created that took into account the amount of sleep the participants reported during the week. In addition to the two fatigue resistant/susceptibility lists, the study found that team productivity was about the same as individual productivity on the complex air battle management task. Also, performance on the complex air battle management tasks (regardless of being a team or individual)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 01, 2008
- Accession Number
- ADA486022
Entities
People
- Dion Fisher
- Donald Harville
- Jeff Whitmore
- Joseph Fischer
- Richard Harrison
- Scott Chaiken
Organizations
- Air Force Research Laboratory