The Impact of a Period of Sleep Deprivation on the Selective Attention, Concentration, Effortfulness and Shooting Scores of Military Personnel

Sleep disorder is common in military circles and, in turn, affects the cognitive functions of an individual. This study is aimed at examining the effect of a period of sleep deprivation on the selective attention, concentration, effortfulness and shooting scores of military personnel.

Ten soldiers of a military center were randomly selected and while being deprived of 30 hours of sleep, their attention, concentration and effortfulness performance (by d2 test) as well as their rifle shooting scores were evaluated and compared with their previous records.

The collected data were analyzed using analysis of variance at the significance level of 0.05. The results revealed that 30 hours of sleep deprivation caused a significant decrease in shooting scores (p = 0.003). On the other hand, the rate of the components related to attention, concentration and effortfulness, or the total efficiency of the subjects   (p = 0.11), or the error score (p = 0.31) and concentration (p = 0.23) did not change significantly.

In general, it can be said that although the sleep deprivation in question did not impair the attention, concentration and effortfulness of the subjects, their shooting scores decreased significantly, and this decrease indicates the independence of the mental factors in relation to sleep deprivation of the subjects in this study.