Fatigue according to Chaudhuri & Behan, (2000) is an acute sense, experience, and feelings due to periods of perceived exertion or stress which imapcts upon physical and congnitve wellbeing, mood motivation, attention, memory, and decision-making processes (Marcora, Staiano, & Manning, 2009; Trejo et al., 2005; van der Linden, Frese, & Meijman, 2003). Chaudhuri and Behan (2000, 2004) mentioned that the neurobiological model of fatigue can occur from either a suggests that fatigue can have either a peripheral or a central cause, which in turn produce different effects on physical and cognitive outcomes. Objective fatigue or peripheral fatigue depending upon your choice of phasing, is the inability to exert or maintain a governed force during physical movement, it is the muscle fatigability. Central fatigue is a subjective phenomenon that is the failure to start or maintain mental or physical outputs due to a decrease in self-motivation (Chaudhuri & Behan, 2004). Cognitive fatigue otherwise known as mental fatigue directly affects an individual’s performance on a day-to-day basis and has direct coloration to cognitive fatigue and cognitive overload (Gunzelmann, Moore, Gluck, Van Dongen, & Dinges, 2011). One aspect of induced cognitive load and in turn cognitive fatigue is task disengagement, whether this is intentional or not, (Kanfer, 2011; van der Linden, 2011). One theory that explains why task disengagement occurs through cognitive overload and fatigue is that of the reward-cost theory of mental fatigue (Tops, Lorist, Wijers, & Meijman, 2004. The reward-cost theory of mental fatigue occurs when perceived effort becomes too great for a potential reward, resulting in the subjective feeling of mental fatigue (Tops, Lorist, Wijers, & Meijman, 2004). These researches suggest that cognitive or mental fatigue is the product of a kind of “stop-emotion” that influences the individual to reduce further effort or withdraw task engagement in order to prevent the overinvestment of cognitive resources and the increased cognitive load seen in a task or activity (s) (Meijman, 2000). This form of behavioral disengagement seen in a task or activate(s) has been suggested by Tops, Lorist, Wijers, & Meijman, (2004) to result in cognitive impairments of poor performance, seen in fatigued individuals. From a neurological perspective, the reductions seen in the dopamine and acetylcholine influx to the prefrontal cortex from the midbrain dopaminergic structures result in increased distractibility and decreased goal activation (Boksem & Tops, 2008). In addition to the role of dopaminergic reward systems, the locus coeruleus-norepinephrine (LC-NE) system has been suggested by van der Linden, (2011) as a contributor to task disengagement as a result of increasing levels of mental fatigue (van der Linden, 2011). A second theory that speaks of the impact upon task disengagement and one that differs from cognitive or mental fatigue as a factor is the underload hypothesis (Pattyn, Neyt, Hendrickx, & Soetens, 2008). The underload hypothesis according to Pattyn, Neyt, Hendrickx, & Soetens (2008) occurs as a result and one that changes in performance due to the increased times on task and cognitive overload is that of increased boredom (Pattyn, Neyt, Hendrickx, & Soetens, 2008). One hypothesis to why the underload hypothesis occurs is through the activation of the reticular activating system, (Edlow 2012) The reticular activating system keeps the individual alert and responsive to sensory stimuli (Reilly, 2012), found in the cerebellum of the brain stem, and acts as a screening devise for incoming information from birth to death (Mesulam, 2010). This wake-up call helps determine what is important to pay attention to, and it has been suggested this can be achieved via the increase of oxygen, blood flow, and glucose (Edlow, 2012), which awakens the brain cells making the student feel more alert and in turn able to focus, engage and have improved attention afterward (Robins, 1997). However, if there is too much cognitive overload the reticular activating system, reduces the amount of sensory stimulus it is exposed to producing sensations of sleepiness which reflects an increase in pressure on the body’s homeostatic sleep system to produce slow-wave sleep (Bjorness & Greene, 2009). These feelings of sleepiness reduce executive functions where the frontal cortex of the brain is responsible for controlling the brain’s function when shifting between different tasks. This involves moving attention from one task to another and inhibiting information, which is not required for the task at hand. The brain’s ability to shift from one task to another is compromised when sleepiness occurs alongside decision-making and emotional processing (Mesulam, 2010). Therefore, how can we prevent cognitive or mental fatigue and in turn task disengagement and the effects of sleepiness, the following are ways this can be achieved
1. Include elements already in your student’s long-term memory. 2. Don’t include anything that does not directly contribute to the learning goal 3. Encourage students to integrate the new information with existing knowledge 4. Have plenty of breaks 5. Make it interactive 6. Make it enjoyable
Comments