Sleep Deprivation

Reaction Time Experiment


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Mean Reaction time (secs)
Night Before Deprivation After Deprivation Percentage Difference
Monday 0.244 0.270 11.03
Tuesday 0.233 0.257 10.49
Wednesday 0.259 0.276 7.415

The task

Subjects were asked to press a space bar as soon as three circles displayed on a computer turned from red to green.

Three practice trials were allowed. These were immediately followed by 5 trials. The average of the five reaction times was calculated.

The whole procedure was performed between 13.00 and 14.00 prior to sleep deprivation that night. The procedure was repeated at the same time the following day, after sleep deprivation.

Results

As can be seen from the table above, there was an increase in reaction time after sleep deprivation. The Average increase for each night was within 7 to 11%. The table below shows that each of the three experiments produced significant increases in reaction times.

Significance levels
Night t value df probability 1-tailed
Monday 2.667445 9 p less than 0.025
Tuesday 3.481713 8 p less than 0.005
Wednesday 1.97473 8 p less than 0.05
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Gary Sturt
sturtg@colchsfc.ac.uk

Copyright © 1998 Gary Sturt
This Home Page was created by WebEdit,21 March 1998
Most recent revision 21 March 1998