Psychomotor performance in indian antarctic expedition

The purpose of the study was to determine the impact of austere winter on psychomotor performance of expedition members who stayed for prolonged duration in Antarctica. Twenty-four volunteers (scientific and technical support personnel) from winter-over team of Indian Antarctic Expedition served as participants. The performance on psychomotor tasks namely hand steadiness, two-hand coordination, and finger dexterity were evaluated at pre and post winter session in Antarctica. A mixed group factorial ANOVA revealed that there was a significant decrease in error for hand steadiness and two-hand coordination, and decline in time (seconds) for finger dexterity at post-winter session when performance was compared against pre-winter session. However, no significant difference was found between scientific and technical support personnel in performance on psychomotor tasks.