Doctoral Dissertation Research in DRMS: The Effects of Sleep Restriction on Adolescents' Pedestrian Safety

每年都有成千上万的青少年因行人受伤而需要就医。许多因素影响着行人的安全行为。其中包括反应时间、冲动、冒险和注意力。睡眠不足会对这些影响行人安全的特征产生负面影响。本研究将探讨睡眠限制是否会降低青少年的行人安全。受试者将在两种条件下参与虚拟现实行人环境：睡眠剥夺条件（前一晚睡眠4小时）和充足睡眠条件（前一晚睡眠8小时）。与充分休息的青少年相比，睡眠不足的青少年可能是更危险的行人。风险将在虚拟行人环境中通过增加近距离呼叫、撞击和错过安全机会的次数、延长启动延迟、缩小间隙大小以及减少对交通的关注来显示。这项研究将在两个方面产生广泛影响。首先，它将提供新知识，帮助为政策决策提供信息，例如学校开学时间。其次，研究表明，睡眠不足的青少年走路的风险增加，这可能会促使父母在青少年将要走路之前的晚上强制他们早点上床睡觉（或者，鼓励父母在他们无法获得足够睡眠的早晨开车送他们的青少年去学校）。这些结果都可能最终导致青少年行人受伤的减少。总的来说，这项研究可能会提高人们对青少年充足睡眠重要性的认识，并促进更健康的睡眠习惯。

Every year thousands of adolescents require medical attention due to pedestrian injury. Many factors contribute to safe pedestrian behavior. Among them are reaction time, impulsivity, risk-taking, and attention. Sleep deprivation negatively influences these same characteristics that influence pedestrian safety. This study will investigate whether sleep restriction reduces adolescents' pedestrian safety. Subjects will engage in a virtual reality pedestrian environment in two conditions: a sleep deprived condition (4 hours sleep the previous night) and an adequate sleep condition (8 hours sleep the previous night). Adolescents may be riskier pedestrians when sleep deprived compared to when adequately rested. Risk will be displayed in a virtual pedestrian environment through increased numbers of close calls, hits, and missed safe opportunities, longer start delays, decreased gap sizes, and less attention to traffic. The study will have broad implications in two areas. First, it will provide new knowledge to help inform policy decisions, such as school start times. Second, research demonstrating the increased pedestrian risk of sleep restricted adolescents might promote parental enforcement of earlier bedtimes on nights before adolescents will be walking somewhere (or, alternatively, encourage parents to drive their adolescents to school on mornings when they were unable to sleep an adequate amount). Each of these outcomes could ultimately result in fewer pedestrian injuries in adolescents. Overall, this study may raise awareness about the significance of adequate sleep in adolescents and promote healthier sleep habits.