To review the research advances related to the application of psychomotor vigilance task (PVT) in the fatigue assessment of aerospace and related operations and in the evaluation of the medical protection measures.

Relevant articles published in China and abroad.

Thirty-eight published references were cited.

The research advances related to the application of PVT in fatigue assessment of aerospace and related operations and in evaluation of the medical protection measures were reviewed. PVT is a commonly used method to evaluate the alertness. It can detect the sustained attention and reaction time of subjects to visual stimuli. On the basis of the classical detection method, PVT had done a portable intelligent modification and the personal test time was significantly reduced to improve the detection efficiency. Many investigations had demonstrated that PVT was used in the detection of central fatigue induced by sleep deprivation, hard mental work and environmental heat stress and other experimental conditions. In simulated and practical aerospace operations, PVT was also a useful method to evaluate the central fatigue of aircrew and astronauts. In addition, PVT can also be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the following medical protection measures against aerospace and related operational fatigue, such as reasonable arrangement of work and rest, white light irradiation, transcranial direct current stimulation, rational use of hypnotics and wake-promoting agents and so on.

Because of the advantages of easy operation and reliable results, PVT have been widely used in fatigue assessment of aerospace and related operations as well as the evaluation of the medical protection measures. In practice, its evaluation efficiency would be further improved if it combined with other method.

Fatigue; Sleep; Cognition; Health services; Literature review; Psychomotor vigilance test