Schedule of Events | Symposia

Task-dependent reaction time impairments under cognitive fatigue

Poster Session F - Tuesday, April 1, 2025, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Kathleen J. Peters¹, Anthony N. Carlsen¹; ¹University of Ottawa

Cognitive fatigue (CF) is a psychobiological state of subjective exhaustion resulting from sustained mental effort. Although CF is known to increase simple reaction time (RT) latency, the magnitude of this effect varies, possibly due to differences in the cognitive tasks used to induce CF. It is also unclear whether CF might impact RT differently as processing demands of the RT test increase beyond those of a simple RT task. Thus, this study investigated the effects of three cognitively fatiguing tasks on subjective CF ratings and simple, choice, and go/no-go RT. Participants (n=391) were randomly assigned to a one-hour cognitively fatiguing intervention (math/memory, modified Stroop, or dual-back task) or a control intervention (documentary film). Subjective CF and RT were assessed both pre- and post-intervention. All cognitively fatiguing tasks resulted in significant increases in subjective CF and RT compared to control (p<.05), with greater pre-to-post increases observed in simple RT (24.9ms) compared to go/no-go (14.4ms) and choice RT (12.6ms; p<.01). The type of cognitively fatiguing task impacted only choice RT, which was significantly slower following the Stroop task compared to the dual-back and math/memory tasks (p<.05). Overall, these findings suggest that the ability to induce subjective CF and associated increases in simple and go/no-go RT is largely independent of cognitively fatiguing task type. However, choice RT may be uniquely impacted by certain cognitive demands of the Stroop task, such as repeated response selection. Additionally, although all RT measures were affected by CF, simple RT may be the most sensitive to its effects.

Topic Area: PERCEPTION & ACTION: Motor control