The Effect of Different Nocturnal Sleep Patterns on Shooting Accuracy, Reaction Time and Cognitive Function of Military Students

Document Type : Original Research

Authors

Physical Education and Sport Sciences Department, Faculty of Humanities, Shahed University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Background and Aim: The present study aimed to investigate the effect of different nocturnal sleep patterns on shooting accuracy, reaction time, and cognitive function in military college students.
Methods: The study was conducted on 48 students of Air Defense Officer University in Tehran (age; 20.7±1.15). Subjects were randomly divided into four groups: guarding post 1 (6-8, 12-14, 18-20, and 24-2), guarding post 2 (8-10, 14-16, 20-24, 2-4), guarding post 3 (10-12, 16-18, 22-24, 4-6), and control (no guarding post). After the end of the last guarding post, cognitive function (Stroop test); accuracy of shooting (10-meter air pistol shooting); simple, and choice-reaction time (Deary-Liewald test) were assessed in all groups. Data were analyzed using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Tukey or Dunnet-3 post hoc tests.
Results: The results showed that compared to the control group, the shooting accuracy was significantly reduced in the subjects of the guarding post 1 (P=0.002) and guarding post 2 (P=0.001) groups. Moreover, compared to the control group, the guarding post 2 (P=0.001) and the guarding post 3 (P=0.001) groups, had poorer performance in the simple reaction test. Additionally, subjects in the guarding post 2 group had poorer performance in choice-reaction time and cognitive function compared to the control group (P=0.001).
Conclusion: The nocturnal sleep pattern has a significant effect on cognitive function, reaction time, and shooting accuracy of military forces, particularly sleep deprivation caused by guarding post 2 has the most deleterious effect on these variables. Hence, it seems that more attention should be given to the rest after guarding post 2 in the military forces to achieve optimal performance.

Keywords


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