A test battery designed to assess psychological/behavioral fatigue was used to compare restdays to a workweek of five 12-hr days at a data entry job simulation. Across both workdays and restdays, the battery was presented at regular intervals to test for fatigue effects and diurnal variations. Increased data entry errors across the workday and the workweek as well as subjective reports of increased tiredness on workdays indicated that the work regimen was fatiguing. Test battery performance paralleled those results. On workdays, as compared with restdays, grammatical reasoning was faster but less accurate; digit addition was slower; simple, dual, and choice reaction times were slower; and hand steadiness decreased. The results demonstrated the sensitivity of the battery to long hours of work. The results are discussed in terms of work-rest differences, changes across the workweek, diurnal variations, and cognitive demand.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Aschoff, J. (1981). Circadian rhythms: Interference with and dependence on work-rest schedules. In L. C. Johnson, D.I. Tepas, W. P. Colquhoun, and M. J. Colligan (Eds.) The twenty-four hour workday: Proceedings of a symposium on variations in work-sleep schedules (DHHS [NIOSH] Publication No. 81-127, pp. 13-50). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
2.
Aschoff, J., Geidke, H., Poppel, E., and Wever, R. (1972). The influence of sleep interruption and sleep deprivation on circadian rhythms in human performance. In W. P. Colquhoun (Ed.), Aspects of human efficiency (pp. 135-150). London: English Universities Press.
3.
Baddeley, A. (1968). A 3-min reasoning task based on grammatical transformation. Psychonomic Science, 10, 341-342.
4.
Bills, A. C. (1931). Blocking: A new principle in mental fatigue. American Journal of Psychology, 43, 230-245.
5.
Colligan, M. J., and Tepas, D. I. (1986). The stress of hours of work. American Industrial Hygiene Association Journal, 47, 686-695.
6.
Colquhoun, W. P. (1982). Biological rhythms and performance. In W. B. Webb (Ed.), Biological rhythms, sleep, and performance (pp. 59-86). New York: Wiley.
7.
Colquhoun, W. P., Blake, M. J. F., and Edwards, R. S. (1968). Experimental studies of shift work II: Stabilized 8-hour shift systems. Ergonomics, 11, 527-546.
8.
Colquhoun, W. P., Blake, M. J. F., and Edwards, R. S. (1969). Experimental studies of shift work III: Stabilized 12-hour shift systems. Ergonomics, 12, 856-882.
9.
Dember, W. N., and Warm, J. S. (1979). Psychology of perception. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
10.
Hoddes, E., Zarcone, V., Smythe, H., Phillips, R., and Dement, W. C. (1973). Quantification of sleepiness. A new approach. Psychophysiology, 10, 431-436.
11.
Johnson, L. C., and Naitoh, P. (1974). The operational consequences of sleep deprivation and sleep deficit (AGARDograph No. 193, North Atlantic Treaty Organization). (Available from the National Technical Information Service, 5285 Port Royal Road, Springfield, VA22151).
12.
Johnson, L. C., Tepas, D. I., Colquhoun, W. P., and Colligan, M. J. (Eds.). (1981). The twenty-four hour workday: Proceedings of a symposium on variations in work-sleep schedules (DHHS [NIOSH) Publication No. 81-127). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
13.
Monk, T. H., and Embrey, D. E. (1981). A field study of circadian rhythms in actual and interpolated task performance. In A. Reinberg, N. Vieux, and P. Andlauer (Eds.), Night and shiftwork: Biological and social aspects (pp. 473-480). Oxford, England: Pergamon.
14.
Myers, J. L. (1979). Fundamentals of experimental design. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
15.
Naitoh, P. (1981). Circadian cycles and the restorative power of naps. In L. C. Johnson, D. I. Tepas, W. P. Colquhoun, and M. J. Colligan (Eds.), The twenty-four hour workday: Proceedings of a symposium on variations in work-sleep schedules (DHHS [NIOSH] Publication No. 81-127, pp. 693-720). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
16.
Pfaff, D. (1968). Effects of temperature and time of day on time judgments. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 76, 419-422.
17.
Rosa, R. R., and Colligan, M. J. (1986). The NIOSH fatigue test battery (NIOSH Internal Report). (Available from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Division of Biomedical and Behavioral Science, 4676 Columbia Pkwy., Cincinnati, OH 45226).
18.
Rosa, R. R., Colligan, M. J., and Lewis, P. (1986). Extended workdays: Effects of 8-hour and 12-hour rotating shift schedules on test performance, subjective alertness, sleep patterns, and psychosocial variables. In Proceedings of the Human Factors Society 30th Annual Meeting (pp. 882-884). Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors Society.
19.
Rosa, R. R., Wheeler, D. D., Warm, J. S., and Colligan, M. J. (1985). Extended workdays: Effects on performance and ratings of fatigue and alertness. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers, 17, 6-15.
20.
Rutenfranz, J., Colquhoun, W. P., Knauth, P., and Ghata, J. N. (1977). Biomedical and psychosocial aspects of shift work. Scandinavian Journal of Work Environment and Health, 3, 165-182.
21.
Volle, M., Brisson, G. R., Perusse, M., Tanaka, M., and Doyon, Y. (1979). Compressed work-week: Psychophysiological and physiological repercussions. Ergonomics, 22,1001-1010.
22.
Wever, R. A. (1981). On varying work-sleep schedules: The biological rhythm perspective. In L. C. Johnson, D. I. Tepas, W. P. Colquhoun, and M. J. Colligan (Eds.), The twenty-four hour workday: Proceedings of a symposium on variations in work-sleep schedules (DHHS [NIOSH] Publication No. 81-127, pp. 51-86). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
23.
Williams, H. L., and Lubin, A. (1967). Speeded addition and sleep loss. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 73, 313-331.
