ABSTRACT
The increasing prevalence of mobile computer technology in everyday life allows for the collection of data that were previously inaccessible or expensive to obtain . Such data provide unique information different to that collected in the lab or through the use of questionnaires because they are obtained under naturalistic conditions a requirement for neuroergonomics practice. Additionally, i f users perceive the technology as either beneficial or enjoyable, longitudinal data become easier to collect. With these factors in mind, an iPhone application was developed to provide personalized feedback on sleep , sleep arousal, and variables that co-vary with sleep. The device included a vigilance task to measure arousal, an alarm clock to track sleep duration and time of sleep , and a diary that displayed sleep statistics to the user. The effect of sleep duration on vigilance task performance was investigated in a case study utilizing this device to collect naturalistic data . Three variations of the Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT) were administered, consisting of a 2 second window of response (for a total-time-on-task of 1 minute), 5 -second window of response (for a total-time-on-task of 2 . 5 minutes), and 1 0-second window of response (for a total-timc-on-task of 5 minutes) . Performance efficiency on all three tasks was related to sleep deprivation. The results suggest that shorter duration tasks that require spatial discrimination and have higher motor demands than the conventional PVT are sensitive to the homeostatic component of sleep . Potential uses for this and similar applications to the field of neuroergonomics are also discussed.
