The Impairing Effect of Mental Fatigue on Visual Sustained Attention under Monotonous Multi-Object Visual Attention Task in Long Durations: An Event-Related Potential Based Study
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0163360
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Summary
This study investigates how mental fatigue impairs visual sustained attention during prolonged, monotonous multi-object tasks. While previous research has established that mental fatigue reduces performance in single-task paradigms, there is a lack of understanding regarding its effects when operators must simultaneously attend to multiple visual stimuli, a common requirement in real-world scenarios like driving or radar monitoring. The authors aimed to determine if mental fatigue degrades sustained attention and higher-level cognitive processing in a synchronous dual-visual task paradigm, using event-related potentials (ERPs) to provide neurophysiological evidence beyond behavioral metrics. Sixteen right-handed undergraduate participants performed a continuous tracking task (primary) and a random signal detection task (secondary) for 63 minutes without rest. The primary task required participants to keep a tracking circle aligned with a moving target ball, while the secondary task required them to detect and respond to red dots appearing at random intervals and positions. Data were collected from two distinct intervals: the first (0–25 minutes) and the second (36–60 minutes) to capture changes in fatigue levels. The study measured subjective sleepiness using the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale (KSS), behavioral performance (reaction time, accuracy, and tracking distance), and EEG data to analyze ERP components, specifically N1, N2b, and P3. The results confirmed that the prolonged task induced significant mental fatigue, evidenced by a substantial increase in KSS scores and eye blink frequency in the second interval. Behaviorally, participants showed degraded performance in both tasks: the distance between the tracking circle and target increased, and reaction times to random signals prolonged while detection accuracy decreased. Crucially, ERP analysis revealed that the P3 amplitude, which reflects the allocation of attentional resources, significantly decreased in the second interval, while P3 latency, indicative of the speed of stimulus evaluation and decision-making, significantly increased. The decrease in P3 amplitude was negatively correlated with the increase in subjective fatigue scores. No significant changes were observed in the earlier N1 and N2b components, suggesting that fatigue primarily affects later-stage cognitive processing rather than early sensory perception. These findings demonstrate that mental fatigue impairs visual sustained attention by reducing the cognitive resources available for processing unexpected stimuli and slowing down high-level decision-making processes. The study provides neurophysiological evidence that fatigue modulates context updating and memory storage mechanisms associated with the P3 component. By utilizing a dual-visual task paradigm, the research offers insights into how fatigue affects operators in complex, real-world environments, supporting the development of countermeasures to prevent accidents caused by diminished vigilance.
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| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | Crossref | — | — | 1 | 2026-08-09 |
| archive | success | canonical_url | — | — | 1 | 2026-08-09 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 3 | 2026-08-10 |
| clean | success | clean | — | — | 1 | 2026-08-09 |
| chunk | success | chunk | — | — | 1 | 2026-08-09 |
| embed | success | embed | Qwen/Qwen3-Embedding-8B | — | 1 | 2026-08-09 |
| enrich | success | semantic_scholar | — | — | 1 | 2026-08-09 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-08-09 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-nvidia | summ-v5 | 2 | 2026-08-10 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 11 | 2026-08-11 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 2 | 2026-08-10 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-nvidia on 2026-08-10; verification: verified.
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- Empirical Findings: physiological data