The digital platform UnnCyberpsy developed by cyberpsychologists at Lobachevsky University allows conducting sleepiness and sleep research beyond the laboratory. Experiment participants register their state from home using a special online service.

"Typically, sleep research requires the presence of a person in the laboratory, including at night. This creates much inconvenience for the subjects of the study and impairs the purity of the experiment. We have created a virtual environment that allows us to study sleep remotely," said Valeria Demareva, the author of the study, Head of the Cyberpsychology Laboratory at the UNN Faculty of Social Sciences.

According to the researchers, the UnnCyberpsy digital platform has already shown its effectiveness in studying the dynamics of sleepiness. At certain time intervals, the participants of the experiment assessed their sleepiness and entered the data into the system. The results were consistent with the data collected using traditional methods.

"Typically, apps are created for a single test and record a person's state at a certain moment. Our system allows us to observe changes in a person’s state over time. The branched algorithm makes the system flexible and allows adding new parameters to the experiment," Valeria Demareva explained.

According to the authors of the study, the platform is easily scalable and can be used in the research with cyclic control of the human condition. In the future, UNN cyberpsychologists are going to use the platform to conduct cognitive tests.

 The web service was developed with the support of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research. The results were presented at the International Forum Internet and Modern Society IMS-2023 in St. Petersburg.