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restriction. Some professions such as health suggested, this classical model is the
care, security and transportation require principal one used for study designs in SD
working at night. In such fields, the effect of research.
acute total sleep deprivation (SD) on
performance is crucial. Furthermore, people There are many unanswered questions
tend to stretch their capacity and regarding both the functions of sleep and
compromise their nightly sleep, thus the effects of sleep loss. Sleep is considered
becoming chronically sleep deprived. to be important to body restitution, like
energy conservation, thermoregulation, and
When considering the effects of sleep loss, tissue recovery (Maquet 2001). In addition, sleep
the distinction between total and partial SD is essential for cognitive performance,
is important. Although both conditions especially memory consolidation (Maquet
induce several negative effects including 2001; Stickgold 2005). Sleep loss, instead, seems to
observed independent of lapsing (Kjellberg vulnerability to SD, Van Dongen et al (2005) have
1977; Dorrian et al 2005). According to these
proposed the concept of the “trototype”, as
hypotheses, performance during SD would compared to the terms “chronotype” and
most likely deteriorate in long, simple, and “somnotype”, which define interindividual
monotonous tasks requiring reaction speed differences in the timing of circadian
or vigilance. In addition to the lapses and rhythmicity and sleep duration. Since a
response slowing, considerable fluctuations comprehensive review of the interindividual
in alertness and effort have been observed differences in sleep and performance has
been published recently (Van Dongen et al 2005), measure the effect of "real-world sleep on
we will focus here on the studies with group performance."
comparisons and just briefly address the
trait-like vulnerability To measure cognitive performance,
researchers examined the subjects’
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/
keystroke speed on a computer and their
PMC2656292/ click interactions on a web search engine.
Those results were correlated with sleep
data collected from wearable fitness
Sleep deprived suffer performance loss, devices.
according to new study
AuthorTracie WhitePublished onJanuary 26, As Zeitzer explains in a blog post about the
2017 study by Microsoft’s research group:
More bad news for insomniacs and those of Searching the web requires your brain to do
us who struggle to get enough sleep at a few complex tasks: Figure out what terms
night. Lack of sleep definitely affects your to search on, type the query and then
performance the next day, and probably for process the results to decide which one to
a longer period of time than you might click. Even small differences in the amount
expect, according to a new study. of time it would take you to click on the
result are indicative of how rapidly you are
Among the findings: Two consecutive nights processing that information. The idea is
of less than six hours could leave you people have slower processing speeds as
they get more tired.
sluggish for the following six days. (Surprised?
You aren't alone: This stat sparked a gasp of
dismay at my office staff Results showed that over the first 24 hours,
meeting.) Researchers also found that having one insufficient night of sleep is
staying up an extra hour, even if followed by associated with 1.2 percent slower
a full night’s sleep, is correlated with slower performance on average keystroke timing.
performance the next day. But going to bed Two insufficient nights of sleep are 4.8
an hour earlier than normal has a negligible percent slower compared to two nights with
effect. longer than six hours of sleep each (2.7
percent and 7.3 percent increases for click
The study appeared today on arXiv.org — times respectively.) The study adds: "These
an online repository for scientific papers in effect estimates took into account any real-
the fields of math and science. world behavioral compensation such as
increased caffeine intake that would help
improve performance after sleep loss."
"The data set is pretty amazing," says Jamie
Zeitzer, PhD, a co-author of the study and a
Stanford assistant professor of psychiatry The research is another example of the use
and behavioral sciences. "We looked at of mobile technology allowing researchers
more than 30,000 people over 18 months, to collect much larger data sets in real-
which came out to more than 3 million world time than through traditional studies.
nights of sleep analyzed." More from Zeitzer:
The study — led by Tim Althoff, a Stanford The web-scale study provides insight into the
PhD student in computer science, during a impact of sleep deprivation in the real
summer 2016 internship with Microsoft world, where people compensate for lost
Research in Redmond, Washington — is sleep with extra coffee and naps, and
thought to be the largest to date to otherwise adapt to life circumstances that
limit pillow time. The findings largely overlap
with results from small and controlled lab-
scale studies, where participants are
systematically sleep deprived and assessed
on standardized tests.