The NASA performance assessment workstation: Cognitive performance during head-down bed rest

The NASA Performance Assessment Workstation was used to assess cognitive performance changes in eight males subjected to seventeen days of 6 ° head-down bed rest. PAWS uses six performance tasks to assess directed and divided attention, spatial, mathematical, and memory skills, and tracking ability....

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Bibliographic Details
Published inActa astronautica Vol. 43; no. 3; pp. 223 - 233
Main Authors Shehab, Randa L., Schlegel, Robert E., Schiflett, Samuel G., Eddy, Douglas R.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published England Elsevier Ltd 01.08.1998
Subjects
Adult
Aerospace Medicine
Affect
Attention
Bed Rest
Cognition
Ergonomics
Head-Down Tilt
Humans
Male
Memory
Mental Fatigue
Pilot Projects
Psychomotor Performance
Reaction Time
Space life sciences
United States
United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Weightlessness Simulation
NASA Discipline Space Human Factors
Non-NASA Center
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Summary:The NASA Performance Assessment Workstation was used to assess cognitive performance changes in eight males subjected to seventeen days of 6 ° head-down bed rest. PAWS uses six performance tasks to assess directed and divided attention, spatial, mathematical, and memory skills, and tracking ability. Subjective scales assess overall fatigue and mood state. Subjects completed training trials, practice trials, bed rest trials, and recovery trials. The last eight practice trials and all bed rest trials were performed with subjects lying face-down on a gurney. In general, there was no apparent cumulative effect of bed rest. Following a short period of performance stabilization, a slight but steady trend of performance improvement was observed across all trials. For most tasks, this trend of performance improvement was enhanced during recovery. No statistically significant differences in performance were observed when comparing bed rest with the control period. Additionally, fatigue scores showed little change across all periods.
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ISSN:0094-5765
1879-2030
DOI:10.1016/S0094-5765(98)00156-8