Validation of a psychomotor reaction test based on a tablet device

GIANNINA BELLONE; DIEGO GOLOMBEK; DANIEL VIGO; SANTIAGO PLANO

Simposio; XIII Latin American Symposium on Chronobiology (LASC); 2015

Introduction: The Psychomotor Vigilance Test (PVT) is used as a psychometric test to quantify the alertness of an individual. Due to the evolution of portable technology and the inclusion of mobile devices in society, thanks to their comfortable design, we sought to validate a Simple Reaction Test (Tablet-SRT) based on Tablet devices. This is app is available on Android and iOS alike. Objective: To validate the Tablet-SRT Method: We used a validated netbook-based PVT (Net-PVT) to validate the Tablet-SRT. The tasks were randomly assessed to a group of 26 healthy individuals. Both tests last five minutes and measure the reaction time to a visual stimulus that repeatedly appears at random intervals between 1 and 10 seconds. Mean reaction times (MRT) of the tests were calculated and compared in order to obtain a measurement of accuracy (mean difference between Net-PVT and Tablet-SRT) and precision (IC95% of the mean difference). The statistical significance of the difference was determined through a T-test for paired samples. In addition, the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was determined to evaluate the agreement of both methods. Results: MRT (Net-PVT) = Mean ± SEM, MRT (Tablet-SRT) = Mean ± SEM; MRT difference = 92.1 ms, IC95% = 67 ms ? 116.7 ms, p < 0.001. ICC = 0.61, IC95% 0.13 ? 0.82, p=0.011. Conclusions: The agreement between both methods is considered good. Therefore, we conclude that the Tablet-SRT is a valid alternative for measuring the reaction time in healthy individuals. Results regarding the validation of other devices will also be presented.