@article{ref1,
title="Cognitive demand of human sensorimotor performance during an extended space mission: a dual-task study",
journal="Aviation, space, and environmental medicine",
year="2010",
author="Bock, Otmar and Weigelt, Cornelia and Bloomberg, Jacob J.",
volume="81",
number="9",
pages="819-824",
abstract="INTRODUCTION: Two previous single-case studies found that the dual-task costs of manual tracking plus memory search increased during a space mission, and concluded that sensorimotor deficits during spaceflight may be related to cognitive overload. Since dual-task costs were insensitive to the difficulty of memory search, the authors argued that the overload may reflect stress-related problems of multitasking, rather than a scarcity of specific cognitive resources. Here we expand the available database and compare different types of concurrent task. METHODS: Three subjects were repeatedly tested before, during, and after an extended mission on the International Space Station (ISS). They performed an unstable tracking task and four reaction-time tasks, both separately and concurrently. Inflight data could only be obtained during later parts of the mission. RESULTS: The tracking error increased from pre- to in flight by a factor of about 2, both under single- and dual-task conditions. The dual-task costs with a reaction-time task requiring rhythm production was 2.4 times higher than with a reaction-time task requiring visuo-spatial transformations, and 8 times higher than with a regular choice reaction-time task. CONCLUSIONS: Long-term sensorimotor deficits during spaceflight may reflect not only stress, but also a scarcity of resources related to complex motor programming; possibly those resources are tied up by sensorimotor adaptation to the space environment.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0095-6562",
doi="",
url="http://dx.doi.org/"
}