title: Effects of intermittent odours on cognitive-motor performance and brain functioning during mental fatigue.
abstract: Effects of intermittent presentation of odours on cognitive-motor performance and brain activity during mental fatigue were examined using event-related brain potentials. Participants performed a Go/NoGo task for 60 min, in both odour and air control conditions. The time-on-task reaction time increase was significantly smaller in the odour condition than in the air control condition. Go- and NoGo-P3 amplitudes were larger in the presence of odours than during the air control, during mental fatigue. There were no effects of odours on error negativity (Ne)/error-related negativity (ERN) amplitude and latency. These results suggest that the presence of intermittent odours improves attentional/effortful control of response selection, and that this effect mitigates the deterioration of cognitive-motor performance during mental fatigue.
  The present study provides evidence for a potentially effective strategy, the use of odours, to mitigate deficits in cognitive-motor performance during time-on-task. The results show that the presence of intermittent odours is an efficient tool for maintenance of attention and reaction time during a prolonged task.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Human Sciences, University of East Asia , Shimonoseki, 751-8503, Japan. y.kato@toua-u.ac.jp
authors.forename: Yuichiro
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kato
authors.forename: Hiroshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Endo
authors.forename: Tatsu
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kobayakawa
authors.forename: Kazuhiro
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kato
authors.forename: Satoshi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kitazaki
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005073:Evoked Potentials, Somatosensory / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D005222:Mental Fatigue; D009812:Odorants; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult