Validity and sensitivity of a brief psychomotor vigilance test (PVT-B) to total and partial sleep deprivation
Open accessAbstract
The Psychomotor Vigilance Test (PVT) objectively assesses fatigue-related changes in alertness associated with sleep loss, extended wakefulness, circadian misalignment, and time on task. The standard 10-min PVT is often considered impractical in applied contexts. To address this limitation, we developed a modified brief 3-min version of the PVT (PVT-B). The PVT-B was validated in controlled laboratory studies with 74 healthy subjects (34 female, aged 22-45 years) that participated either in a total sleep deprivation (TSD) study involving 33 hours awake (N=31 subjects) or in a partial sleep deprivation (PSD) protocol involving 5 consecutive nights of 4 hours time in bed (N=43 subjects). PVT and PVT-B were performed regularly during wakefulness. Effect sizes of 5 key PVT outcomes were larger for TSD than PSD and larger for PVT than for PVT-B for all outcomes. Effect size was largest for response speed (reciprocal response time) for both the PVT-B and the PVT in both TSD and PSD. According to Cohen's criteria, effect sizes for the PVT-B were still large (TSD) or medium to large (PSD, except for fastest 10% RT). Compared to the 70% decrease in test duration the 22.7% (range 6.9%-67.8%) average decrease in effect size was deemed an acceptable trade-off between duration and sensitivity. Overall, PVT-B performance had faster response times, more false starts and fewer lapses than PVT performance (all p<0.01). After reducing the lapse threshold from 500 ms to 355 ms for PVT-B, mixed model ANOVAs indicated no differential sensitivity to sleep loss between PVT-B and PVT for all outcome variables (all P>0.15) but the fastest 10% response times during PSD (P<0.001), and effect sizes increased from 1.38 to 1.49 (TSD) and 0.65 to 0.76 (PSD), respectively. In conclusion, PVT-B tracked standard 10-min PVT performance throughout both TSD and PSD, and yielded medium to large effect sizes. PVT-B may be a useful tool for assessing behavioral alertness in settings where the duration of the 10-min PVT is considered impractical, although further validation in applied settings is needed.
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The PVT-B is a validated measure of vigilant attention stability based on simple reaction time to visual stimuli.
“The PVT-B is a validated measure of the stability of vigilant attention that is based on simple reaction time to visual stimuli occurring at random intervals”
From Sleep and Alertness in a Duty-Hour Flexibility Trial in Internal Medicine (2019) · cites this paper as [22]
Vigilant attention performance and psychomotor speed, as assessed with the PVT, are affected early and progressively more severely by sleep deprivation.
“Vigilant attention performance and psychomotor speed, as assessed with the PVT, are affected early and progressively more severely by sleep deprivation.86,166”
From Circadian rhythms, sleep deprivation, and human performance (2013) · cites this paper as [166]
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- Authors
- Basner, M., Mollicone, D., & Dinges, D. F.
- Affiliations
- University of Pennsylvania (US)
- Pulsar Informatics (United States) (US)
- Corresponding author
- Basner, Mathias
- Venue
- Acta Astronautica
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2011-12
- Volume
- 69
- Issue
- 11-12
- Pages
- 949-959
- ISSN
- 0094-5765 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3197786
- OpenAlex
- W1986895837
- Cited by
- 466
- References
- 46
- Citations by year
- 2026: 48 · 2025: 46 · 2024: 52 · 2023: 37 · 2022: 29 · 2021: 38 · 2020: 56 · 2019: 38 · 2018: 36 · 2017: 20 · 2016: 22 · 2015: 19 · 2014: 13 · 2013: 9 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 10.30
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Acta Astronautica (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health (UL1TR000003)
- National Institute of Nursing Research (R01NR004281)
- National Center for Research Resources (M01RR000040, UL1RR024134)
- National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Sleep and Work-Related Fatigue
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Sleep and Wakefulness Research
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Mind wandering and attention
- Keywords
- psychomotor vigilance test, total sleep deprivation, sleep restriction, alertness, fatigue, reaction time (psychology), false starts, lapses, test time reduction, circadian misalignment, extended wakefulness, time in bed, test validation, effect size, time on task, shift work
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