Vigilance Task

The vigilance task is a simple game that is administered upon awakening from sleep. It involves following a randomly moving ball with your pointer finger. While you are performing the task, your ability to follow the ball is measured. Performing the task quickly and accurately indicates healthier sleep and less sleep inertia. This was inspired by sleep research in which similar tasks were predictive of sleep inertia severity, or in other words, the degree of grogginess experienced upon waking (Dinges, 1985; Takahashi, Ohno, 1998; Scheef, Shea, Hilton, & Shea, 2008).

Dynamic Task

If you play the game as soon as you wake up, you get more points than if it takes you awhile to wake up. Also, the faster you do the task, the faster the target moves on the screen. This makes your score on the Vigilance Game more sensitive so you can see how getting a poor night of sleep may affect your performance. In other words, if you are particularly tired one morning, you may wait to do the game and you might perform slowly at the game. This would result in getting less points and playing a slower game than if you play right when you wake-up and you complete the game quickly.