High incentive effects on vigilance performance during 72 hours of total sleep deprivation

It was found that incentive was able to maintain performance at baseline levels for up to 36 h of deprivation, and although this performance fell, it remained significantly better than that for NI, for a further day only.

Abstract

Three matched groups of five subjects, designated sleep deprived with incentive (I), sleep deprived without incentive (NI), no sleep deprivation, no incentive control (C), were run on separate occasions. All underwent 12 h of auditory vigilance performance three times per 24 h, following a baseline non-incentive day. During deprivation, group I were given attractive monetary reward for "hits" and were "fined" for false alarms and misses. These stakes were doubled for each successive deprivation day in an attempt to combat the increasing tiredness effects. At the end of deprivation, groups I and NI were allowed 8 h of recovery sleep, and were tested again, without incentive for I. It was found that incentive was able to maintain performance (hits and d′) at baseline levels for up to 36 h of deprivation. Thereafter, although this performance fell, it remained significantly better than that for NI, for a further day only. Despite substantive rewards on the third day, incentive was ineffective. Following the recovery sleep, performance returned to normal. Although no significant time-of-day effects were found in performance during the normal waking hours, it was apparent that the major decline per 24 h occurred through the night, with a levelling off in the day.