Decisional style, sleepiness, and online responsiveness

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Sleep Science

Background:

• Sleep problems negatively impact work performance and decision-making.
• Online work environments present unique challenges due to 24/7 accessibility, increasing workload and fatigue.
• Objective performance metrics are needed to complement subjective self-reports in sleep research.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between sleepiness and decision-making.
• To identify unobtrusive performance indices from online surveys.
• To explore the impact of mobile phone use on sleep and performance.

Main Methods:

• 344 participants completed online questionnaires (Insomnia Severity Index, Epworth Sleepiness Scale, Melbourne Decision Making Questionnaire).
• Performance metrics (time, clicks) were unobtrusively recorded by the survey platform (Qualtrics).
• Multiple regression analysis was used to examine associations between sleepiness, insomnia, mobile phone use, and performance.

Main Results:

• Insomnia correlated with daytime sleepiness, hypervigilance, and pre-bedtime mobile phone use.
• Moderate sleepiness was linked to a higher number of clicks required to complete the survey.
• Increased sleepiness was associated with longer completion times for self-assessment tasks.

Conclusions:

• Clinically significant sleepiness demonstrably alters online performance, detectable through response times and interaction metrics.
• Objective measures of sleepiness are crucial for understanding performance decrements in digital work environments.
• Automated interventions and system designs promoting better sleep quality are recommended for occupational health.