Dr. Stephen Kosslyn is developing short, easy-to-administer tests likened to “blood pressure cuffs” for the mind to evaluate space travel’s effects on cognitive function. These tests, administered through the user’s Palm Pilot, will deliver objective, immediate assessment of cognitive function. This program can also be used to assess the effects on cognitive function of various Earth-bound activities, including the effects of sleep loss, of physical exercise, of hormonal variations, or even of eating certain foods.
Overview
Quick Assessment of Basic Cognitive Function: Blood Pressure Cuffs for the Mind
Principal Investigator:
Stephen M. Kosslyn, Ph.D.
Organization:
Harvard College
Technical Summary
The goal of this project was to develop a set of brief performance tests (the MiniCog Rapid Assessment Battery, or MRAB) and a method for administering them (the MiniCog application) on a handheld personal digital assistant (PDA). The performance tests have been selected from among standard tasks in the psychological literature and tap basic cognitive abilities necessary for performing complex operations (such as extravehicular activity (EVA) or many other tasks that astronauts have to complete) or that have been shown to be impaired by the types of stressors that astronauts might expect to encounter (e.g., fatigue, anxiety, constant noise, demanding work shifts).
The tests are designed to be self-administered and the PDA program, MiniCog, is designed to provide immediate performance feedback. The specific tests that are implemented are designed to assess perceptual reaction time, attention (vigilance, divided attention, and filtering), executive function (verbal and spatial working memory, cognitive set switching), and verbal and spatial problem solving.
The tool box developed here has three general applications: First, it will provide a practical means for assessing the effects of various stressors - environmental or internal - on key cognitive processes. For example, it could be used to assess the effects of fatigue, circadian rhythm disruption, mood disorders, exercise, drug use, or diet on cognitive processing. Second, the test battery can be used to assess the effectiveness of "countermeasures," such as specific training to manage fatigue. The tests can be administered before and after such training, which will provide a measure of how the training affects the basic information processes of interest. Finally, the tasks can be used by people "on the job" (e.g., astronauts in space) or others to inform themselves about the current state of their cognitive processes.
For example, before EVA to repair an external part, an astronaut might find it useful to know how effectively she or he was reasoning logically and spatially. If one was not doing as well as usual, someone else might go, one might go later, or one might go but employ a countermeasure or make a concerted effort to be very careful.
We have published an article about the test battery itself and are revising for publication an article about the software system. We have finished collecting and are in the process of analyzing data from an individual differences study using performance on MRAB to predict performance on more complex and longer tasks. In addition, we are completing data collection in a study of the effects of fatigue on performance and the potentially ameliorating effect of caffeine. The MRAB is also being used in several collaborations, including those with NSBRI team members Philip Lieberman, David Dinges and Judith Orasanu. With additional funding from the NSBRI, we plan to continue these collaborations to conduct additional validation studies and to port the MiniCog software to other platforms.
Earth Applications
The three general applications of this assessment toolbox have "Earth" benefits as well as "space" benefits: First, the toolbox will provide a practical means for assessing the effects of various stressors (such as fatigue, mood, noise, drug use, or diet) on cognitive processing. We not only expect some of those variables (e.g., fatigue, certain types of drugs) to have a significant impact on astronauts, but also expect them to affect people on Earth (e.g., pilots on long flights suffer from irregular sleep schedules, a large percentage of the population suffers from mood disorders or takes psychoactive medications).
Secondly, the tasks can be used to assess the effectiveness of "countermeasures," such as training or drugs to manage fatigue. Just as the same stressors may affect people on the ground as well as the astronauts, the same countermeasures may be useful for the Earth-bound population as well as those in space flight.
Finally, the tasks could be used by people "on the job" (e.g., truck drivers) to inform them about the current state of their cognitive processes. For example, when truck drivers "weigh in" after many hours of travel, they can run through the battery of tests and make sure that they are still mentally alert. Depending on their scores, they may want to rest before going back on the road, or they may eat a meal, drink coffee or engage in other activities to reduce the danger of driving.
Other researchers will be able to use our test battery to assess cognitive performance quickly and under a variety of laboratory and field conditions. They may also use the MiniCog platform to develop their own psychological experiments or assessment tasks. Both our test battery and the MiniCog application have an advantage over standard task batteries and many typical psychological scripting programs in that the tests are brief and the method of administration is compact, portable, and fairly inexpensive. This could make MiniCog and MRAB practical in a wide range of settings where there are questions of neurocognitive capability.
This project's funding ended in 2004