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Circadian rhythms in cognitive performance: methodological constraints, protocols, theoretical underpinnings.

Katharina Blatter·Christian Cajochen
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Abstract

The investigation of time-of-day effects on cognitive performance began in the early days of psychophysiological performance assessments. Since then, standardised, highly controlled protocols (constant routine and forced desynchrony) and a standard performance task (psychomotor vigilance task) have been developed to quantify sleep-wake homeostatic and internal circadian time-dependent effects on human cognitive performance. However, performance assessment in this field depends on a plethora of factors. The roles of task difficulty, task duration and complexity, the performance measure per se, practice effects, inter-individual differences, and ageing are all relevant aspects. Therefore, well-defined theoretical approaches and standard procedures are needed for tasks pinpointing higher cortical functions along with more information about time-dependent changes in the neural basis of task performance. This promises a fascinating challenge for future research on sleep-wake related and circadian aspects of different cognitive domains.

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Behavioral ResearchCircadian RhythmCognitionHumansModels, NeurologicalPsychomotor PerformanceSleepWakefulnessJournal ArticleResearch Support, Non-U.S. Gov'tReview

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BibTeXRIS

Katharina Blatter, Christian Cajochen. 2006-10-19. Circadian rhythms in cognitive performance: methodological constraints, protocols, theoretical underpinnings.. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2006.09.009

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