Can anyone suggest a tool for that purpose? Perhaps some reaction time testing software?
I used something called a Psychomotor Vigilance Task when I was doing my sleep deprivation experiments. Essentially, you spend ten minutes watching a screen, reacting when it starts counting up. This measures how frequently your attention lapses (since even at high levels of sleep deprivation, it’s possible to accomplish complicated tasks, so long as they’re short duration). I coded my own in Ruby Shoes, and can send you the code if that’d be helpful.
While it’s useful at measuring sleep deprivation, I don’t think it’s particularly useful at measuring performance around normal levels. What you’re interested in there is not so much “how easily do I get bored?” but “how creative am I?”, and the PVT is really unfun and boring to do.
I used something called a Psychomotor Vigilance Task when I was doing my sleep deprivation experiments. Essentially, you spend ten minutes watching a screen, reacting when it starts counting up. This measures how frequently your attention lapses (since even at high levels of sleep deprivation, it’s possible to accomplish complicated tasks, so long as they’re short duration). I coded my own in Ruby Shoes, and can send you the code if that’d be helpful.
While it’s useful at measuring sleep deprivation, I don’t think it’s particularly useful at measuring performance around normal levels. What you’re interested in there is not so much “how easily do I get bored?” but “how creative am I?”, and the PVT is really unfun and boring to do.