The Effect of Sleep Deprivation on Short- Memory - Term Paper Example

? The effect of sleep deprivation on Short-term Memory Truly, sleep deprivation has a severe health problems both short-term such as drowsiness, forgetfulness, anxiety, distractibility, and memory and cognitive impairment among others; and long term impacts like heart attack, obesity, high blood pressure, stroke, and psychiatric problems like depression. There is a link between insufficient sleep and increased appetite, and various studies have revealed that sleep deprivation promotes overeating and physical inactivity, and this in turn causes obesity (Mattice, Brooks and Lee-Chiong, 2012). Normally, the average adult needs approximately seven to nine hours of sleep every night. Getting too little sleep means sleeping for six hours or less, and continuous sleepless nights contribute largely to health problems, obesity and other health complications. Arguably, the immediate effects of lack of sleep are obvious and they include, being unfocused and sluggish. The effects of sleep deprivation on short-term memory are a common issue in the field of psychology, and a lot of work has been published based on the issue. Due to adverse effects of sleep deprivation, many researches focus on its impacts on an individual’s memory like directed forgetting, recognition memory, and motor sequence learning. Moreover, studies reveal that prolonged sleep deprivation can be fatal (Mallick, 2011). This paper provides a very thoughtful discussion on the effects of sleep deprivation on short-term memory, covering memory recognition, directed forgetting as well as motor sequence learning. Arguably, adverse effects of sleep deprivation are inevitable especially to those individuals who in most cases stay awake. Sleep deprivation interferes with the human body function including changes in the immune system as well as hormonal production (Mattice, Brooks and Lee-Chiong, 2012). Memory simply refers to the storage of information needed during the learning process, and working memory describes short-term memory that promotes learning (Glidewell, 2006). Moreover, memory search, symbol substitution as well as digit search shows short-term memory (Schmorrow et al., 2009). Various experiments have been conducted including Ebbinghaus experiment, and the results revealed that most cases of forgetfulness happen during the first 48 hours and that the rate of forgetting reduces between 8 and 24-hour interval, which are probably spent asleep. Accordingly, researches have been carried out which needed individual participants to master and memorize lists in the morning or at night and were required to recall the lists at regular intervals. Thereafter, research findings proved that those who memorized the lists at night and tried to recall while asleep performed effectively (Nesca & Koulac, 1994). More so, theories that have been put forth to address the effects of sleep deprivation include interference theory and this theory explores why being awake enhances rate of forgetting among individuals. According to this theory, information can be forgotten because of learning to take place when a person is awake. For instance, the learning process can take place before causing Proactive Interference (PI), or afterward leading to Retroactive Interference (RI), and these assist in explaining the link between the rate of forgetting and wakefulness. However, this theory failed to explain and convince people why forgetting happened at the same time when one was asleep and awake (Nesca & Koulac, 1994). Later on, another theory called the consolidation theory was established and it presented a better and convincing account for the effects of sleep on retention, as opposed to the interference theory. According to this theory, traces of memory needed time to develop and that sleep helped in the consolidation process since it removed any additional interference (Nesca & Koulac, 1994). Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is very important in maintaining brain excitability as well as memory consolidation (Mallick, 2011). Undoubtedly, sleep deprivation comes with adverse effects on the performance and effectiveness of an individual’s memory, and there is an association between sleep deprivation and impaired memory function (Glidewell, 2006). In addition, sleep deprivation have different impacts on different cognitive abilities (Schmorrow et al., 2009). The reduction of memory performance is likely to result from lapses, which increases as the length of sleep deprivation grow, and so, when a person was provided with information during a lapse period, this person will definitely have a significant problem recalling the information (Polzella, 1975). Mostly, short-term memory cognition is tested by the use of lists and pictures. For this matter, during the experiment, individual participants were provided with lists of words and they were in turn expected to write down lists of words and recall the lists later on. Accordingly, the participants were expected to look at different images and take at least 10 seconds for every image, thereafter, they were requested to point out the images initially presented to them when presented again among other distracter images. Considering the two cases, sleep deprivation-reduced performance, but studied proved that the images shown to the participants when they were resting and tested after 24 hours of sleep deprivation, the images were still determined by these participants accurately. This shows that sleep deprivation affects the short-term memory, as opposed to long-term memory (Polzella, 1975). Polzella conducted various experiments in order to determine whether the detriment to short-term memory recognition was because of encoding issues emerging form lapses. To test this, individuals were given a series of the number or letter pairs on a screen for a limited time. After the display of these series of images, they were shown a probe in order to determine whether the probe was present in the series or not, and accuracy, reaction time as well as the participant’s certainty were all considered during the test. Upon the selection of an answer, the participants were requested to rate their confident on a scale ranging from 1 to 3, whereby 1 meant being unsure and 3 being very sure (Polzella, 1975). This test was to be repeated about 7 times for 9 days consecutively, and the two of the test session were carried out under a sleep deprivation situation whereby, individuals were required to have no sleep for 24 hours. More so, each session took about 30 minutes with 160 trials, and after every trial, they were directed whether their response was true or false just before proceeding to the next trial (Polzella, 1975). Therefore, the results of these tests were compatible with the hypothesis of lapse, and during these experiments, the reaction time revealed cases of lapses during sleep deprivation and this interfered with the performance of the memory. In both tests, there were reduced performance under sleep deprivation conditions, and the lapses affected both short-term and long-term memory encoding (Polzella, 1975). Polzella’s experiment involved the participants opinion as they were asked to rate their level of confidence during the test to determine whether the probe was shown in the previous images or not, but this lacked the necessary analysis about the information derived from this measure. It is extremely difficult to determine whether the feedback given to the participants had any effects on the ability of the subject to accurately determine whether the probe was in the series of images displayed. After each trial, participants received a response whether their answers were right or wrong, but various studies have revealed that this actually decreases the effects of sleep deprivation. More so, the interest level associated with the subject matter of the tests has also been demonstrated to influence the effects of sleep deprivation, for instance, an increase in interest of the subject leads to a decrease in the impacts of sleep deprivation (Harrison & Horne, 2000). Various scholars believe that consolidation of memories taking place when a person is asleep leading to an increased retention. More so, different researchers conducted many experiments to determine the relationship between sleep and retention, and the two scholars, Nesca and Koulac, focused on the interference and consolidation theories in their effort to demonstrate whether improved retention was as a result of sleep or not (Nesca & Koulac, 1994). Based on their study, interference and consolidation theories differed when it comes to the effects of sleep on memory trace. For instance, according to the interference theory, the memory trace was unchanged even after the sleep and that memory is degraded to the amount of wakefulness disregard of whether there was a sleep before recall. Therefore, memorization of information after sleep and awake varies significantly when it comes to recalling the information (Mograss et al., 2009). On the contrary, the consolidation theory argued that the performance and effectiveness of memory was truly improved during sleep, and so, an individual’s memory will for sure last for long as compared to that of the person who failed to sleep after the learning process. To determine which of these theories had a correct suggestion, Nesca and Koulac conducted an experiment to demonstrate which theory was relevant. For this reason, individual participants were required to learn a given list of words immediately after waking up, and during the period of 24 hours later, they were asked to recall this list of words. On the other hand, another group of participants were also asked to learn the same lists, but just before they were asleep, and were also asked recall the list 24 hours later on. As a result, it was noted that wakefulness during learning helped individuals to retain a lot, and so the consolidation theory was at play according to this study (Nesca & Koulac, 1994). More so, another experiment was conducted to determine the effects of sleep deprivation and that of circadian rhythm. Arguably, the circadian rhythm is driven by the biologic clock and is determined by the time of the day (Mattice, Brooks and Lee-Chiong, 2012). During this experiment, participants were requested to learn a list before sleeping, and a certain group of participants was asked to sleep for at least 8 hours, whereas the other group was expected to stay awake for 8 hours just like the previous group. It was noted that the initial group of participants experienced the effects of both sleep deprivation and circadian rhythm while the latter experienced only the effects of the circadian rhythm; however, there was a very little difference between the two groups of participants. More so, a decrease in circadian alertness enhances the increase of sleepiness that takes place at the same time daily (Mattice, Brooks and Lee-Chiong, 2012). Following the results of this experiment, it was noted that the circadian rhythm contributed to memory retention and that during the night, the circadian rhythm was capable of generating memory consolidation (Nesca & Koulac, 1994). Furthermore, the study on directed forgetting required participants to learn a list of words, and they were only asked to recall as few items on the list as possible. This is different from other experiments where the participants were asked to learn and recall lists so as to determine their ability of retention. Either a list method or item method can be used to determine direct forgetting whereby, the list method presented a list to the participants then they were asked to recall or forget the whole list. In contrast, in the item method, the participants were shown a single item and were promptly asked to either recall or forget the item. Various studies have revealed that sleep promotes an individual’s ability to remember items more than to forget the same items, and this implies that sleep triggered directed forgetting using the item method. More so, research findings reveal that taking just a nap during daytime promoted a person’s ability to remember items. In addition, memory consolidation when a person is sleeping is increased by the ability to remember particular items (Abel & Bauml, 2013). Moreover, a study conducted to determine directed forgetting shown the results that were in line with other research findings that sleep promoted an individual’s retention capacity. In addition, the results revealed that directed forgetting cannot be achieved especially when learning is followed by sleep immediately (Abel & Bauml, 2013). Motor sequence learning is another impact of sleep deprivation on an individual’s memory, and based on the previous studies, it was noted that the learning process and simple recognition was promoted by just sleeping, but these studies did not consider the perceptual and motor skills. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct an experiment that tests these additional skills, and so, a study provided participants with 12 training session particularly on a finger-tapping task and later on, after a 12 hour of being asleep or awake, they were tested twice. As a result, it was demonstrated that the participants that slept improved on their skills of performing that particular task, as opposed to those participants that remained awake. More so, this study has revealed the worsening impacts of sleep deprivation especially for arm-reaching tasks and others (Rickard et al., 2008). Furthermore, Rickard and other scholars conducted other experiments to determine the effects of sleep deprivation on motor sequence learning. One of the studies required participants to learn a numeric sequence simply by pressing different keys on a keyboard for at least 30 seconds, and then they were asked to rest for 30 seconds again for the 12 sessions. Thereafter, the participants were put into test after 12 hours of being asleep or awake. Results revealed that the response time reduced during the 12 training sessions and that the participants that were tested after sleep had longer response times than those who stayed awake. More so, the results of the study indicated that sleep protects the motor sequence skills of individuals. Accordingly, the results revealed that the participants that were awake and taught during the morning hours learned faster, that is, they had a reduced reaction time as compared to the group that received their lessons in the evening. In addition, some researchers have focused on the effects of sleep deprivation on memory, task performance, and mood among others. As a result, they concluded that individual’s mood is deeply affected by sleep deprivation as compared to either cognitive or motor performance (Mattice, Brooks and Lee-Chiong, 2012). Accordingly, there are some proof that cognitive processes are affected by sleep deprivation as it impairs some of the cognitive processes such as decision making and problem solving (Mograss et al., 2009). Overall, various studies conducted by different researchers conclude that sleep enhances the consolidation of memories. They argue that during sleep, individual’s memories are not exposed to any form of interference, and as a result, memories are retained for a very long time. More so, these studies reveal that those participants that were able to sleep were capable of remembering or recalling information more than that group of participants that remained awake. Accordingly, sleep enabled the participants to recall the learned motor sequence disregard of the actual task performance. However, the studies show that sleep does not really help in the performance of these tasks but it assists in recalling the sequence of the performed tasks. Therefore, different experiments have demonstrated that sleep deprivation imposes adverse impacts on an individual’s memory, and have clarified the importance of sleep in remembering and recalling learned information. References Abel, M., & Bauml, K. (2013). Sleep can eliminate list-method directed forgetting. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 39(3), 946-952. Glidewell, R. (2006). Glidewell Rapid Sleep Screen: A Structured Interview for Identifying and Managing Sleep Disturbance. ProQuest. Harrison, Y., & Horne, J.A.. (2000). The impact of sleep deprivation on decision making: A review. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 6(3), 236-249. International Conference on Augmented Cognition, Schmorrow, D., Estabrooke, I. V., & Grootjen, M. (2009). Foundations of augmented cognition: Neuroergonomics and operational neuroscience : 5th international conference, FAC 2009, held as part of HCI International 2009, San Diego, CA, USA, July 19-24, 2009 : proceedings. Berlin: Springer. Mallick, B. N. (2011). Rapid eye movement sleep: Regulation and function. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Mattice, C., Brooks, R., & Lee-Chiong, T. L. (2012). Fundamentals of sleep technology. Philadelphia: Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Mograss, M.A., Guillem F., Brazzini-Poisson V, and Godbout R. (2009). The Effects Of Total Sleep Deprivation On Recognition Memory Processes: A Study Of Event-Related Potential. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, Volume 91, Issue 4, 343–352. Nesca, M., & Koulack, D. (1994). Recognition memory, sleep and circadian rhythms. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 48(3), 359-379. Polzella, D. J. (1975). Effects of sleep deprivation on short-term recognition memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning & Memory, 104(2), 194-200. Rickard, T., Cai, D., Rieth, C., Jones, J., & Ard, M. (2008). Sleep Does Not Enhance Motor Sequence Learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 34(4), 834-842. Read More