Reliability and Validity of a 3-minute Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT) in Assessing Sensitivity to Sleep Loss and Alcohol: Fitness for Duty in Aviation and Transportation

Study Objectives The psychomotor vigilance task (PVT) is a widely used objective method to measure sustained attention, but the standard 10-min version is often impractical in operational settings. We investigated the reliability and validity of a 3-min PVT administered on a portable handheld device assessing sensitivity to sleep loss and alcohol in relation to a 10-min PVT and to applied tasks. Methods Forty-seven healthy volunteers underwent a 12 consecutive days sleep lab protocol. A cross-over design was adopted including total sleep deprivation (TSD, 38 hours awake), sleep restriction (SR, 4 h sleep opportunity), acute alcohol consumption, and SR after alcohol intake (SR/Alc 4 h sleep opportunity). Participants performed a 10-min and 3-min PVT and operationally-relevant tasks related to demands in aviation and transportation. Results Sleep loss resulted in significant performance impairments compared to baseline measurements detected by both PVT versions – particularly for mean speed (both p < .001) - and the operationally-relevant tasks. Similar effects were observed due to alcohol intake (speed: both p < .001). The 3-min and 10-min PVT results were highly correlated (speed: between r = .72 and r = .89). Three of four aviation related tasks showed robust correlations with the 3-min PVT. Correlations with the parameters of the task related to transportation were lower, but mainly significant. Conclusion The 3-min PVT showed a high reliability and validity in assessing sleep loss and alcohol induced impairments in cognitive performance. Thus, our results underline its usefulness as potential fitness for duty self-monitoring tool in applied settings.