PEBL Hub — IRB Fact Sheet — 2026-08-23
Psychomotor Vigilance Test
Category:Attention
Duration:~10 minutes
Parameters:11 configurable parameters available
Version:1.0
Input:Keyboard, Mouse, Touch
Description
Test of sustained vigilance and reaction time. Respond as quickly as possible when a stimulus appears. In comparison to high-duty vigilance tasks, stimuli occur with long inter-stimulus intervals (30s or more). Widely used in sleep research, as the main DVs measure lapses indicating sleep attacks.
Key Parameters
| testtype | Test type configuration (default: 3) |
| usecontinuous | Use continuous stimulus presentation timing (default: 1) |
| givefeedback | Provide feedback during the test (default: 1) |
| fixationtime | Duration fixation cross remains visible (milliseconds) (default: 400) |
| numBlocks | Number of repetitions of the interval set (default: 12) |
| numTrials | Total number of trials (120 ~= 10 minutes) (default: 120) |
| totalTime | Total time of the test in milliseconds (default: 600) |
| TooFast | RT threshold for marking trial as too fast (milliseconds) (default: 150) |
| Lapse | RT threshold for marking trial as lapse (milliseconds) (default: 500) |
| Sleepattack | RT threshold for marking trial as sleep attack (milliseconds) (default: 30000) |
| responsemode | Response method: spacebar (space key), leftclick (left mouse button), touchscreen (tap anywhere), clicktarget (click target box) (default: spacebar) |
Example Data Output (5 sample rows)
| sub | block | trial | ISI | ISIbin | abstime | rt | type |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 116561 | 1 | 1 | 4747.04 | 4000 | 11159 | 415 | 2 |
| 116561 | 1 | 2 | 8257.21 | 8000 | 18726 | 392 | 2 |
| 116561 | 1 | 3 | 1165.42 | 1000 | 29780 | 497 | 2 |
| 116561 | 1 | 4 | 3288.25 | 3000 | 33848 | 376 | 2 |
| 116561 | 1 | 5 | 8669.11 | 8000 | 39926 | 358 | 2 |
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.