COGNITIVE EFFECTS OF MENTAL FATIGUE
Relevance. The study of human functional states within the structural-functional approach is an important development in work psychology. As workbecomes more intensive and cognitive, the study of mental fatigue becomesmore important.Objective. To validate cognitive tests for the assessment of mental fatiguecognitive effects, and to replicate cognitive effects of fatigue observed within thestructural-functional approach.Methodology. 27 subjects (18 male), engineers in a high-tech engineeringfirm, and took part in the study conducted over a working day in the morningand in the evening. Mental fatigue was assessed with a questionnaire. The cogni-tive tests included a test of attention switching, a test for working memory, andthe Sternberg's short-term memory search task.Results. A reduction in attention switching and memory search efficiencywas found. These results in a good concordance with previous results and indicatea reduction in the availability of top-down cognitive control resources. Evidencewas found for transition towards sequential self-terminating memory searchstrategy under mental fatigue. No reduced working memory was found, whichmay be related to the meta-cognitive regulation of functional states.Conclusions. Mental fatigue is associated with a reduction in the control ofattention and short-term memory, related to the depletion of cognitive controlresources. Individual cognitive reactions to fatigue are important. Future devel-opments of the structural-functional approach may include the developmentof new diagnostics tools, the usage of cognitive modeling, the orientation to the analysis of the individual differences, and the integration of the structural- functional approach with resource approaches to cognition.