Short communicationMental effort affects vigilance enduringly: after-effects in EEG and behavior
Section snippets
Participants
Forty healthy students (10 men and 30 women; mean age 23 years) participated in this study. They all signed an informed consent and could choose between €20, − or course credits.
Statistical analyses
Data were statistically analyzed with repeated-measures ANOVAs with Bonferroni's confidence interval adjustments. FFT data were analyzed with a 2×2 (time×condition) ANOVA. Behavioral data were computed with a 2×2 (part of task×condition) ANOVA.
Vigilance measures—EEG data: spectral power (FFT)
Merely results for theta and beta2 are presented (see Table 1), as no relevant effects were found for the other bands. Furthermore, results are not presented for Fz, as there were no significant effects present. Separate analyses were performed for the
Discussion
In both experiments, theta power in the EEG increased after mental effort, which indicates a vigilance lowering Ballard, 1996, Corsi-Cabrera et al., 1996, Matthews et al., 2000, Paus et al., 1997. Furthermore, performance declined on the SART after the mental effort task in the first experiment. This decrement is also regarded as a vigilance decline Ballard, 1996, Gillberg and ′kerstedt, 1998, Gorissen et al., 1997. The SART was more sensitive than the Clock test for the effects of mental
Acknowledgements
We thank Natasja Verbocht for assistance during the experiment, Willie van Schaijk for general technical guidance and programming of software concerning EEG-analyses, and Hubert Voogd for constructing software of the SART and Clock test.
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