title: Fitness for duty: a 3-minute version of the Psychomotor Vigilance Test predicts fatigue-related declines in luggage-screening performance.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate the ability of a 3-minute Psychomotor Vigilance Test (PVT) to predict fatigue-related performance decrements on a simulated luggage-screening task (SLST).
  
  
  METHODS
  Thirty-six healthy nonprofessional subjects (mean age = 30.8 years, 20 women) participated in a 4-day laboratory protocol including a 34-hour period of total sleep deprivation with PVT and SLST testing every 2 hours.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Eleven and 20 lapses (355-ms threshold) on the PVT optimally divided SLST performance into high-, medium-, and low-performance bouts with significantly decreasing threat detection performance A'. Assignment to the different SLST performance groups replicated homeostatic and circadian patterns during total sleep deprivation.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The 3-minute PVT was able to predict performance on a simulated luggage-screening task. Fitness-for-duty feasibility should now be tested in professional screeners and operational environments.
authors.affiliation: Division of Sleep and Chronobiology, University of Pennsylvania, Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA. basner@mail.med.upenn.edu
authors.forename: Mathias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Basner
authors.forename: Joshua
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Rubinstein
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D002940:Circadian Rhythm; D003657:Decision Making; D005221:Fatigue / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006706:Homeostasis; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011930:Reaction Time; D012892:Sleep Deprivation / Q000523:psychology; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D013997:Time Factors; D014851:Wakefulness; D014937:Work / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult