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

每年有数千名青少年因行人受伤而需要医疗照顾。许多因素有助于行人的安全行为。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。这项研究将调查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显示，通过增加近距离呼叫，命中和错过的安全机会，更长的启动延迟，减少间隙大小，以及减少对交通的关注。这项研究将在两个领域产生广泛影响。首先，它将提供新的知识，帮助为政策决定提供信息，例如学校开学时间。第二，研究表明，睡眠受限的青少年行人风险增加，可能会促使父母在青少年外出散步前的晚上强制早睡（或者，鼓励父母在青少年睡眠不足的早晨开车送他们上学）。这些结果中的每一个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.