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In isolated environments, crews must maintain vigilance, wakefulness and teamwork to ensure safe and successful outcomes. Cosmonauts and astronauts on long-duration missions will endure the isolation and confinement of the space environment to a greater degree than previous travelers. To successfully carry out critical tasks during missions, crews must maintain a high level of performance fitness while faced with demanding workload and work schedules. Crews may also experience extreme environmental risks, operational emergencies, and a range of psychosocial stressors (e.g., isolation, confinement, separation from family).
Data from MIR, shuttle missions, International Space Station and early lunar missions have documented that human neurobehavioral deficits involving cognitive, emotional and physiological stress-related reactions have been commonly experienced in spaceflight.
During the 105-day experiment, this project will test two novel, unobtrusive, objective methods for monitoring stress-related performance deficits during spaceflights. The techniques used for monitoring are computer based and would be easy to use in a spacecraft or planetary outpost.
The testing and continued development of these technologies to identify stress- and fatigue-related problems in astronauts will facilitate timely assessment and interventions that could significantly mitigate risks related to performance deficits.
Monitoring Techniques Utilized
1. Reading the Face - Optical Computer Recognition (OCR) of Facial Expressions - Unobtrusive video monitoring of crew members and mission control personnel during brief cognitive tests, to detect the presence of stress, fatigue and negative affect.
The optical computer recognition (computer vision) technique will be tested for its ability to unobtrusively and automatically track an individual crew member's facial expressions during spaceflight. The OCR technique being developed is the result of a collaboration between the laboratory of Dr. Dinges (expertise in the evaluation of behavioral and physiological responses to stress, fatigue and affect) and the Computational Biomedicine Imaging and Modeling Center of Dr. Dimitris Metaxas at Rutgers University (expertise in optical tracking of human expressions and gestures). The OCR system has been developed over the past 7 years in laboratory experiments in 109 healthy adult men and women of different ethnicities undergoing varying degrees of workload-based behavioral stressors with and without sleep loss.
A camera tracks the shape and movements of the face in three dimensions, continuously reading expressions of stress, emotion and fatigue. Throughout the 105-day experiment, facial video of the crew and mission control personnel will be acquired for brief periods each day during cognitive performance testing on a specially programmed laptop computer provided to each crew member. The video will be evaluated to determine the extent to which stress, fatigue and negative affect developed during the mission.
Through use of this data and further development, OCR will be designed to provide real-time feedback on the degree of stress, fatigue and negative affect it detects over time in spaceflight, so crews can determine when to apply countermeasures/interventions during prolonged missions.
2. Psychomotor Vigilance Testing (PVT Self Test) - A cognitive test to detect changes in basic neurobehavioral performance involving attention, response speed and impulsivity. The PVT, developed by Dr. Dinges, has been extensively validated for its ability to detect cognitive deficits caused by a variety of factors in spaceflight (e.g., restricted sleep, rapid change in work shifts, motion sickness, and residual sedation from sleep medications). The standard PVT takes 10 minutes; however a 3-minute PVT Self Test has been developed by Dr. Dinges and optimized for use by astronauts. The PVT can determine the extent to which fatigue has altered nervous system speed and accuracy relative to sustained attention. The test requires the user to watch for a visual signal and respond quickly and accurately when it appears. Unaffected by aptitude or practice, the PVT will ultimately be used to inform the user of the need for fatigue countermeasures.
During the 105-Day experiment, the crew members and mission control personnel will take both the 10-minute and 3-minute PVT Self Tests twice daily from laptop computers provided to each participant. Testing will occur during periods of day and night work.
Anticipated Results
The OCR and PVT results from this simulation study will yield important data on alertness, stress, fatigue and negative affect throughout the 105-day experiment. In addition to their utility in spaceflight, the methods used for monitoring stress and fatigue have wide applicability for use in a range of military and civilian operational environments.
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