Effects of bright light and an afternoon nap on task performance depend on the cognitive domain

Previous research revealed inconsistent effects of bright light or a short nap at noon on alertness and performance across different tasks. The current study aimed to explore whether the effects of bright light and a short nap at noon on task performance depended on the cognitive domain. Bright light (1,200 lx, 4,000 K at eye level), nap (near darkness) and control (200 lx, 4,000 K at eye level) conditions were performed from 1:00 to 1:40 PM on three non-consecutive days with a counterbalanced order across participants. After being assigned to one of three conditions, participants underwent two repeated test sessions, each including a psychomotor vigilance task, a go/no-go task, and a paced visual serial addition task, with an interval of more than 1 h, to assess the persistent effects of napping and bright light. Subjective sleepiness, vitality, self-control and mood were also measured. Results showed that accuracy on the go/no-go task and the paced visual serial addition task improved significantly throughout the entire experiment session after napping, whereas reaction speed on the paced visual serial addition task improved time-dependently in the bright light intervention, with a higher reaction speed in only the first test session. Nearly all subjective states benefited from napping but not from bright light. These findings suggested that the effects of bright light and an afternoon nap on task performance would depend on the cognitive domain. An afternoon nap may elicit more effective and persistent benefits on task performance and subjective states.