Cognitive Fatigue: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Current Research and Future Applications

The years since World War II have seen remarkable progress in the field of cognitive fatigue. Many fascinating and encouraging lines of research have been explored, including performance effects associated with cognitive fatigue; task characteristics leading to fatigue; feelings, motivational determinants, biological, and neuropsychological aspects of cognitive fatigue; and drug effects on cognitive fatigue. However, in all this time there has been no book-length treatment of cognitive fatigue, and little effort to bring together these diverse research strands into an integrated whole. In this long-awaited book, editor Phillip L. Ackerman has gathered a group of leading experts to assess both basic research and future applications relevant to cognitive fatigue. Broad in scope, the book covers human factors and ergonomics; clinical and applied differential psychology; and applications in industrial, military, and non-work domains. A balance of theoretical and empirical research, reviewed from several different countries, makes this a truly multinational and interdisciplinary collection. Each chapter concludes with a lively discussion among authors, and the book itself concludes with a provocative open panel discussion regarding promising avenues for research and application. The result is a book that displays the breadth and the emerging unity of the field of cognitive fatigue today.