This investigation studied the effects of 30, 60, and 150 min of continuous driving on drivers' response times to repeated response trials in a simulated emergency--the sudden deceleration of a lead vehicle in a simulated car-following scenario. The results indicated that mean response times of early trials tended to be slower than those of later trials and those of baseline trials. These data imply that repeated response trials can modify decrements normally associated with fatigue mechanisms, and that studies using repeated response trials during driving may not yield valid indications of fatigue-induced performance decrements.
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