Sleep, sleepiness, and neurobehavioral performance while on watch in a simulated 4 hours on/8 hours off maritime watch system.

Seafarer sleepiness jeopardizes safety at sea and has been documented as a direct or contributing factor in many maritime accidents. This study investigates sleep, sleepiness, and neurobehavioral performance in a simulated 4 h on/8 h off watch system as well as the effects of a single free watch disturbance, simulating a condition of overtime work, resulting in 16 h of work in a row and a missed sleep opportunity. Thirty bridge officers (age 30 ± 6 yrs; 29 men) participated in bridge simulator trials on an identical 1-wk voyage in the North Sea and English Channel. The three watch teams started respectively with the 00-04, the 04-08, and the 08-12 watches. Participants rated their sleepiness every hour (Karolinska Sleepiness Scale [KSS]) and carried out a 5-min psychomotor vigilance test (PVT) test at the start and end of every watch. Polysomnography (PSG) was recorded during 6 watches in the first and the second half of the week. KSS was higher during the first (mean ± SD: 4.0 ± 0.2) compared with the second (3.3 ± 0.2) watch of the day (p < 0.001). In addition, it increased with hours on watch (p < 0.001), peaking at the end of watch (4.1 ± 0.2). The free watch disturbance increased KSS profoundly (p < 0.001): from 4.2 ± 0.2 to 6.5 ± 0.3. PVT reaction times were slower during the first (290 ± 6 ms) compared with the second (280 ± 6 ms) watch of the day (p < 0.001) as well as at the end of the watch (289 ± 6 ms) compared with the start (281 ± 6 ms; p = 0.001). The free watch disturbance increased reaction times (p < 0.001) from 283 ± 5 to 306 ± 7 ms. Similar effects were observed for PVT lapses. One third of all participants slept during at least one of the PSG watches. Sleep on watch was most abundant in the team working 00-04 and it increased following the free watch disturbance. This study reveals that-within a 4 h on/8 h off shift system-subjective and objective sleepiness peak during the night and early morning watches, coinciding with a time frame in which relatively many maritime accidents occur. In addition, we showed that overtime work strongly increases sleepiness. Finally, a striking amount of participants fell asleep while on duty.

Fatigue at sea in Swedish shipping-a field study.

BACKGROUND: Today many merchant ships sail with only two nautical officers, working a shift schedule of 6 hr on and 6 hr off. There are concerns that such a shift schedule is related to fatigue. However, little data exist from onboard studies of seafarers. METHODS: Data were collected on board 13 ships. Fifteen participants worked on a 6-on, 6-off watch system and another 15 on a 4-on, 8-off watch system. Electrooculography, actigraphy, diaries, and reaction time tests were used to measure the effects of shift system on fatigue and sleep. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Sleepiness was higher during the night shift in the 6-on, 6-off system. Moreover, sleepiness increased more during the watch in the 6-on, 6-off system compared to the 4-on, 8-off system. There was a trend toward shorter sleep episodes in the 6-on, 6-off system and sleep was more often split into two episodes.

The effects of driving situation on sleepiness indicators after sleep loss: a driving simulator study.

Almost all studies of sleepy driving are carried out in driving simulators and with monotonous road conditions (no interaction with other cars). The present study investigated indicators of sleepy driving in a more challenging scenario after a night awake. 17 participants drove a high fidelity moving base driving simulator experiment while sleepiness was monitored physiologically and behaviourally. Short periods of situations of free driving (no other vehicles) alternated with short periods of following another vehicle (car following) with and without the possibility to overtake. The result showed that a night of prior sleep loss increased sleepiness levels at the wheel (eye closure duration and lateral variability) compared to after a night of normal sleep. Blink duration while overtaking was significantly lower compared to the other situations, it was at the same level as after night sleep. Speed when passing a stopped school bus was not significantly affected by sleepiness. However the warning caused a more rapid reduction of speed. In conclusion, a moderately challenging driving contest did not affect sleepiness indicators, but a very challenging one did so (overtaking). This suggests that it is important to monitor the driving situation in field operational tests of sleepy driving.

Driver experience and cognitive workload in different traffic environments.

How do levels of cognitive workload differ between experienced and inexperienced drivers? In this study we explored cognitive workload and driver experience, using a secondary task method, the peripheral detection task (PDT) in a field study. The main results showed a large and statistically significant difference in cognitive workload levels between experienced and inexperienced drivers. Inexperienced, low mileage drivers had on average approximately 250 milliseconds (ms) longer reaction times to a peripheral stimulus, than the experienced drivers. It would, therefore, appear that drivers with better training and experience were able to automate the driving task more effectively than their less experienced counterparts in accordance with theoretical psychological models. It has been suggested that increased training and experience may provide attention resource savings that can benefit the driver in handling new or unexpected traffic situations.

Using mobile telephones: cognitive workload and attention resource allocation.

Driver distraction is recognized as being one of the central causes of road traffic incidents and mobile telephones are tangible devices (among many other electronic devices) that can distract the driver through changes in workload. Forty participants completed a motorway route characterized by a low level of road complexity in the form of vehicle handling and information processing. A peripheral detection task (PDT) was employed to gauge mental workload. We compared effects of conversation type (simple versus complex) and telephone mode (hands-free versus handheld) to baseline conditions. The participants' reaction times increased significantly when conversing but no benefit of hands-free units over handheld units on rural roads/motorways were found. Thus, in regard to mobile telephones, the content of the conversation was far more important for driving and driver distraction than the type of telephone when driving on a motorway or similar type of road. The more difficult and complex the conversation, the greater the possible negative effect on driver distraction.

Traffic sense--which factors influence the skill to predict the development of traffic scenes?

A study was conducted to evaluate the skill to predict the development of traffic situations. A stop-controlled intersection was filmed over several days, and 12 scenes with varying traffic complexity were selected. In half of the scenes, the traffic rules were violated, in half of the scenes, the rules were observed. A total of 36 participants were asked to watch the scenes and predict how the scene would most likely develop in the 2s after the film was paused. Additionally, the participants rated how certain they were about their prediction, and how complex and dangerous they assessed the scenes to be. With the method used here, experienced drivers were not found to make more correct predictions of situational development, and no difference in skill to predict could be found between genders. Nevertheless, more experienced drivers were more certain in their judgements and evaluated the situations on average as less complex and dangerous than did less experienced drivers. Scenes in which the traffic rules were violated were more difficult to predict correctly. The scenes in which the participants predicted violations were rated as more complex and dangerous. It is concluded that the low-cost method used here is more useful for examining which scenes are generally easy or difficult to predict and how they are experienced subjectively than to investigate differences in performance for different driver categories.