[Accepted manuscript] It is time to stop using the terminology “passive" fatigue.

Resumen

Fatigue is a phenomenon with implications at the individual level, causing daily perturbations for each of us. Fatigue also has societal implications, as economic costs and death have each been attributed to fatigue. To be studied accurately, it is crucial to distinguish the term fatigue from related terms such as boredom or sleepiness. The terminology “passive” fatigue is often used in the literature. However, “passive” fatigue is a broad term that is not specific to the task(s) used to induce fatigue. Indeed, the term passive fatigue is semantically incorrect as participants performing a fatiguing task are active and not passive. Moreover, the fatiguing tasks used to induce “passive” fatigue are typically monotonous, and induce boredom and sleepiness. In laboratory tasks, participants persevere in boring tasks in the presence of sleepiness, inhibiting their dominant response to disengage from the ongoing task, thus inducing cognitive fatigue or an ego-depletion effect. The boredom and sleepiness induced by the tasks used to induce “passive” fatigue likely explain the observed effects in the literature. It is therefore necessary to rely on solid theories, have accurate definitions regarding what is being studied, and have objective and subjective measures of the phenomenon of interest. In this context, we propose that researchers interested in the “passive” fatigue phenomenon systematically monitor fatigue, boredom and sleepiness; and refer to the concept of “fatigue induced by [name of task]” (e.g., fatigue induced by the Mackworth's clock) and avoid proliferating the generic and insufficiently precise term, “passive” fatigue.

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Cómo citar (APA 7)

Mangin, T., & Pageaux, B. (2024). [Accepted manuscript] It is time to stop using the terminology “passive" fatigue.. https://doi.org/10.1037/mot0000375