Extended operations and sleep loss can lead to fatigue, decrements in decision making, and other challenges to performance, productivity, and safety. The NASA Ames Research Center's Fatigue Countermeasures Group has conducted an extended program of research to develop and evaluate operationally useful countermeasures to mitigate the adverse effects of fatigue. This proposal describes an effort to conduct a meta-analytic integration of the evidence on the effectiveness of fatigue countermeasures such as naps, exercise, bright lights, and other interventions. The specific objectives of the Phase I research are to: (a) summarize and integrate existing research on naps as a fatigue countermeasure using a meta-analytic statistical technique, (b) identify the strength and significance of the effects of naps on performance, fatigue, and other relevant outcome measures, and (c) identify factors (such as length of the nap and the post nap interval) that may moderate the effects of naps as a fatigue countermeasure. POTENTIAL COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS The integration of existing research and the identification of new and effective fatigue countermeasures should have a considerable impact on Federal as well as commercial users in aviation, transportation, medicine, equipment operation, manufacturing and other operational environments that involve 24-hour demands. This research will result in precise, empirically-based guidelines for implementing fatigue countermeasures in civilian and military operational environments. The integration and summarization of research results in this area will result in specific recommendations for research, policy and application.
