M. Blagrove et al., THE EFFECTS OF CHRONIC SLEEP REDUCTION ON THE PERFORMANCE OF COGNITIVE TASKS SENSITIVE TO SLEEP-DEPRIVATION, Applied cognitive psychology, 9(1), 1995, pp. 21-40
In four sleep loss experiments we aimed, first, to compare performance
during long-term sleep reduction with performance during short-term t
otal sleep deprivation, and second, to measure the effects of both met
hods of sleep loss on ability to ignore distracting irrelevant stimuli
, using a finding embedded figures test (FEFT). Logical reasoning, aud
itory vigilance and finding embedded figures tasks were shown to be si
gnificantly sensitive to one night's sleep deprivation. However, in on
e sleep reduction study subjects reduced to a mean of 5.2 hours sleep
per night for 4 weeks showed no performance deficits on logical reason
ing. In a second sleep reduction study subjects reduced to a mean of 4
.3 hours sleep per night for 4 nights, and subjects reduced to a mean
of 5.3 hours sleep per night for 18 nights, showed no performance defi
cits on logical reasoning or auditory vigilance, despite their reports
of severe increases in subjective sleepiness and reduced concentratio
n. Both these sleep reduction groups, though, did show decrements on t
he FEFT, which we interpret in terms of dearousal increasing distracti
bility, which the sleep-reduced subjects could not overcome with effor
t, as they did with the other tests.