INDIVIDUAL WORK PERFORMANCE DURING A 10-HOUR PERIOD OF RESPIRATOR WEAR

A study was performed to test the effects of fatigue and food deprivat ion on performance while wearing respirator masks. Eleven subjects per formed cognitive, psychomotor, and motor tasks, arranged in blocks of 3 hours and performed in round-robin sequence. Performance data and ad ditional psychological and physiological information were obtained. Re spirator masks were found to have little effect on task performance ev en with food intake denied. Fatigue and food deprivation had little ef fect on performance in the unmasked condition. The only measure that r eflected fatigue effects was the psychological profile of mood states. An ancillary study involving five subjects who were allowed to ingest food during the day did not show any performance improvement over sub jects without food.