The impact of cognitive interference on performance during prolonged sleep loss.
A study was conducted on the effects of off-task cognitions on performance during sleep deprivation. Subjects answered the Thought Occurrence Questionnaire, assessing their proneness to engage in off-task cognitions, and were deprived of sleep for 72 hours, during which they performed a variety of tasks including visual discrimination and three versions of a logical reasoning task in which cognitive load was varied systematically. In addition, every day subjects answered the Cognitive Interference Questionnaire, which taps off-task cognitions during the experiment. Results indicated that subjects who habitually engage in off-task cognitions performed worse during 72 hours of sleep loss than subjects who do not engage in such distracting activities. In addition, it was found that the engagement in off-task cognitions increased during the 72 hours of sleep loss and such an engagement was related to deficits in performance accuracy. The mechanisms of off-task cognitions and sleep loss underlying these effects are discussed.
Mikulincer
M
M
Department of Psychology, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel.
Babkoff
H
H
Caspy
T
T
Weiss
H
H
D000328:Adult; D001143:Arousal; D001288:Attention; D003210:Concept Formation; D005556:Form Perception; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011340:Problem Solving; D012892:Sleep Deprivation; D013850:Thinking