Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT)
Respond as fast as possible to a brief visual stimulus appearing at long, unpredictable inter-stimulus intervals (~2–10 s in 10-minute sessions). Lapses (RT > 500 ms) and reciprocal mean RT index sustained vigilance. Foundational tool in sleep-deprivation and shift-work research; test–retest reliability ICC ≈ 0.8–0.9 sets it apart from generic simple-RT tasks.
- Attention
Indexed implementations 1
Metadata only — each row links to the authors' own page. A date in the last column is the last time an automated check confirmed the link loads; it is not a review of the task.
| Implementation | Source | Languages | Link checked |
|---|---|---|---|
| Psychomotor Vigilance Test · Experiment Factory | Experiment Factory | English | 2026-05-28 |
Key references
- Dinges, D. F., & Powell, J. W. (1985). Microcomputer analyses of performance on a portable, simple visual RT task during sustained operations. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 17(6), 652–655. doi:10.3758/bf03200977
- Lim, J., & Dinges, D. F. (2008). Sleep deprivation and vigilant attention. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1129(1), 305–322. doi:10.1196/annals.1417.002