Female and Male Aviators are not Affected Differently by Sleep Deprivation and Continuous Task Demands

Recent changes in U.S. military regulations have brought about the assignment of female aviators to combat roles. This has been the topic of serious debate, but there are few facts concerning differences between males' and females' abilities to withstand combat-relevant stressors. This stu...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Caldwell, John A., Jr, Caldwell, J. L
Format: Report
Language:English
Subjects:
AIR NAVIGATION
ANGER
ANXIETY
ARMY AVIATION
ARMY RESEARCH
ATTENTION
ATTITUDES(PSYCHOLOGY)
AVIATION MEDICINE
CONFUSION
ENDURANCE(PHYSIOLOGY)
FATIGUE(PHYSIOLOGY)
FEMALES
FLIGHT MANEUVERS
FLIGHT SIMULATION
GENDER DIFFERENCES
Helicopters
JUDGEMENT(PSYCHOLOGY)
MALES
Medicine and Medical Research
NEUROPHYSIOLOGY
PE62787A
PERCEPTION(PSYCHOLOGY)
PERFORMANCE(HUMAN)
PILOTS
Psychology
PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY
REACTION(PSYCHOLOGY)
REST
SLEEP DEPRIVATION
Stress Physiology
THRESHOLDS(PHYSIOLOGY)
UH-60 AIRCRAFT
VIGOR
WU175
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Summary:Recent changes in U.S. military regulations have brought about the assignment of female aviators to combat roles. This has been the topic of serious debate, but there are few facts concerning differences between males' and females' abilities to withstand combat-relevant stressors. This study was conducted to determine whether there are gender differences in responses to a common operational stressor, sleep deprivation. Six male and six female UH-60 helicopter pilots were exposed to a 40-hour period of continuous wakefulness and tested on flight performance and mood. The flight performance results indicated that gender produced virtually no operationally significant differences in the effects of sleep loss. Furthermore, although mood evaluations showed that women felt less tense and more energetic overall than their male counterparts, there were no interactions between sleep deprivation and gender. Thus, male and female aviators appear equally capable of performing flight-related tasks despite moderate sleep loss.