Effects of partial sleep deprivation on sustained attention and inhibitory control in a dual-task paradigm

We investigated the effect of an acute partial sleep deprivation on upper limb dual-task performance. Through a within-subject design, we assessed participants’ inhibitory control (Go/No-go task; GNG), sustained attention (Psychomotor vigilance test; PVT) and motor performance (finger tapping; FT) after one night of partial sleep deprivation (SD) versus one night of normal sleep (NS). After both SD and NS, participants underwent three single task (ST) conditions and two dual-task (DT) conditions in a counterbalanced order. We observed in 46 participants substantial differences between DT and ST performance, i.e., dual-task effects (DTEs), for both inhibitory control and sustained attention regardless of the sleeping conditions. Notably, more negative DTEs emerged after SD compared to NS only in GNG, but not in PVT. Overall, the present dual-task paradigm effectively elicited cognitive interference, revealing robust DTEs across cognitive tasks independent of sleep condition, and a selective sleep-deprivation effect only for inhibitory control under dual-tasking. Unveiling factors shaping dual-task performance in sleep-deprived situations provides novel insights into the implications of both sleep-disordered conditions and lifestyles entailing occasional sleep deprivation.