LAUSR

Sleep deprivation impairs some higher-order cognitive processes, but it is unclear if this reflects impaired ability to perform complex tasks, a reduction in motivation, or both. There is evidence that reward motivation attenuates the effect of sleep deprivation on lower-level cognitive processes, namely vigilant attention. We investigated the extent to which reward motivation would mitigate the effect of sleep deprivation on placekeeping, a higher-order cognitive process that plays a central role in accurate performance of procedural tasks. To conduct the study under pandemic conditions, we developed a novel method to conduct sleep deprivation research remotely. Participants (N = 414) joined a Zoom meeting in the evening and completed the Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT) and a placekeeping task (UNRAVEL). At 00:00, we randomly assigned participants to stay awake in the meeting overnight (Deprivation) or leave the meeting and sleep (Rested). Two trained researchers stayed in the meeting overnight to monitor participants. At 08:30, Rested participants re-joined the meeting, and all participants completed the PVT and UNRAVEL again. Some participants (Motivated), but not others (Nonmotivated), could earn a monetary reward based on their morning UNRAVEL accuracy. Performance on the PVT was completed before the motivation manipulation. We examined morning UNRAVEL accuracy using a 2 (Sleep: Deprivation, Rested) x 2 (Reward: Motivated, Nonmotivated) between-participants design with evening performance as a covariate. Deprivation participants made more errors than Rested participants, Motivated participants made fewer errors than Nonmotivated participants, and there was no interaction between the factors. Motivational interventions may be an effective way to mitigate some of the effects of sleep deprivation on higher-order cognitive tasks. However, reward motivation affected Deprivation and Rested participants similarly, and, therefore, did not compensate for impairments specific to sleep deprivation. Consistent with results of studies testing effects of naps and caffeine, the present results suggest that sleep deprivation impairs the ability to perform a procedural sequence accurately in a way that is difficult to mitigate. This work was funded by the Office of Naval Research (N00014-20-1-2739).