The Effect of Partial Sleep Deprivation and Time-on-Task on Young Drivers’ Subjective and Objective Sleepiness

Despite sleepiness being considered one of the main factors contributing to road crashes, and even though extensive efforts have been made in the identification of techniques able to detect it, the assessment of fitness-to-drive regarding driving fatigue and sleepiness is still an open issue. In the literature on driver sleepiness, both vehicle-based measures and behavioral measures are used. Concerning the former, the one considered more reliable is the Standard Deviation of Lateral Position (SDLP) while the PERcent of eye CLOSure over a defined period of time (PERCLOS) seems to be the most informative behavioral measure. In the present study, using a within-subject design, we assessed the effect of a single night of partial sleep deprivation (PSD, less than 5 h sleeping time) compared to a control condition (full night of sleep, 8 h sleeping time) on SDLP and PERCLOS, in young adults driving in a dynamic car simulator. Results show that time-on-task and PSD affect both subjective and objective sleepiness measures. Moreover, our data confirm that both objective and subjective sleepiness increase through a monotonous driving scenario. Considering that SDLP and PERCLOS were often used separately in studies on driver sleepiness and fatigue detection, the present results have potential implications for fitness-to-drive assessment in that they provide useful information allowing to combine the advantages of the two measures for drowsiness detection while driving.