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Memory and Time of Day
Abstract
Subjects performed a memory task on two occasions, one in the morning and the other in the afternoon. The task comprised two components, one involved immediate recall of sequences of nine digits, the other involved the repeated item technique devised by Hebb (1961), in which one nine-digit sequence is surreptitiously repeated, each repetition being separated by two non-repeated sequences. Performance on the immediate memory task was better in the morning than the afternoon. The repeated item was recalled more accurately than non-repeated items, but this effect was not influenced by time of day. An explanation in terms of the relationship between arousal and memory reported by Kleinsmith and Kaplan (1963) is suggested.
... It is not surprising then that research has been directed towards documenting and explaining factors that might influence cognitive performance. For instance, some research suggests that cognitive performance might be influenced by the time of day; that is, whether it is morning or evening [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. The findings from this research are that, in general, immediate memory performance tends to be better in the morning in than the evening [4,5,7,11,12], whereas inferential productions about what is read tend to be greater in the evening than in the morning [8,10]. ...
... For instance, some research suggests that cognitive performance might be influenced by the time of day; that is, whether it is morning or evening [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. The findings from this research are that, in general, immediate memory performance tends to be better in the morning in than the evening [4,5,7,11,12], whereas inferential productions about what is read tend to be greater in the evening than in the morning [8,10]. ...
... Although to-date only two studies have considered the influences of day of week on general cognitive performance [16,17] studies have considered the influences of time of day [4][5][6][7][8]10,11]. For this reason, we re-analyzed our data in order to assess the potential interactive influences of day of week and time of day on cognitive performance. ...
... In the third of a series of studies Barrett and Ekstrand (1972) Studies on short-term memory (STM) have indicated that STM is better in the morning and declines steadily throughout the day Blake, 1967;Baddeley, Hatter, Scott & Snashall, 1970). In contrast, long-term memory (LTM) appears to be better over evening retention intervals than over comparable morning retention intervals (Hockey, Davies & Gray, 1972 Blake interpreted this diurnal variation as related to underlying states of arousal as indicated by body temperature which is known to drop to a low level during sleep at night and rise during the day to a peak at midevening. ...
... Accordingly, learning should be better when body temperature is lower and thus be most efficient during the night and early morning, although evidence indicates that performance on a number of measures is generally poorer when body temperature is lower (Colquhoun,197 2) . Baddeley, Hatter, Scott and Snashall (1970) tested the immediate recall of Ss for sequences of digits in the morning and in the afternoon. They found significantly better immediate recall in the morning than in the afternoon and attributed the effect to a circadian fluctuation in level of arousal. ...
... However, the finding is in stark contrast to the hypothesis that STM is negatively correlated with time-of-day (Blake, 1967;Baddeley et al., 1970). ...
... The time of day has also been examined to affect memory span. Experiments show that the short term memory is stronger in the morning as compared to evening, or even afternoon (Baddeley, Hatter, Scott & Snashall, 1970;Folkard, Monk, Bradbury & Rosenthall, 1977;Furnham & Gunter, 1987). Physiological measures for general arousal parallel the circadian RESEARCH A R T I C L E Journal of Young Investigators rhythm of core body temperature (a significant indicator of the internal clock), reaching nadir at 4 a.m. and peak by about 8 p.m. (Hornik, 1988). ...
... A closer visual analyses of the data shows that not only is the VSTM span highest in the morning (i.e. 0830 hours), as suggested by Baddeley et al. (1970), and many others (Folkard et al., 1977;Furnham & Gunter, 1987;Hornik, 1988), but also the greatest degree of variation in the memory spans takes place between 0830 and 1030 hours, by showing a decrease in its value, so much so that it reaches the minimum value (for the period measured) at 1030 hours. After this, the changes are more gradual, irrespective of whether they are increasing or decreasing. ...
... Finally, the study also finds a significant inverse relation between subjective alertness and short term memory Variation in average test scores for females RESEARCH A R T I C L E Journal of Young Investigators span, as also suggested by Folkard and Monk (1978) who after carrying out three different experiments, reached to the conclusion that short-term memory was better in morning, and it showed decay with increasing levels of general arousal. Similar findings that short-term memory is stronger in morning as compared to afternoon or evening have also been reported in other studies (Baddeley et al., 1970;Folkard et al., 1977;Furnham & Gunter, 1987), which augments the fact that shortterm memory varies in an inverse relation to subjective alertness, as general arousal increases from morning to evening (Hornik, 1988) and subjective alertness varies in a parallel relation to general arousal (Easterbrook, 1959). Even though there is much data to support this finding, the reason for this relation between short-term memory and subjective alertness is not understood. ...
Short-term memory is an extensively researched topic in cognitive psychology, which has shown the impact of different covariates
such as age, gender and time of the day, among others. However, the relation of different covariates have not been studied together,
nor are there many studies conducted in which all or most of these confounding factors have been catered for. The current study was
conducted to find out whether a definite pattern for the diurnal variation of visual short-term memory exists, if there are any gender
based differences in these patterns, and whether the pattern of subjective alertness varies in an inverse relation to the pattern of visual
short-term memory. Thirty one first-year undergraduate medical students, between the ages of 17 and 20, were recruited for this
purpose. Three memory tests (Digit span test, Picture span test and Corsi block test) were administered to assess their visual short-
term memory span, while the subjective alertness was measured using the Stanford Sleepiness scale, at four timings of the day (0830,
1030, 1230, and 1430 hours). The scores of the memory tests revealed a distinct variation pattern of visual short -term memory in both
genders. In males, the memory span initially decreased from 0830 to 1030 hours, and then kept on increasing till 1430 hours. In
females, on the other hand, the pattern was the same (as in males) up till 1230 hours, but then memory span underwent decay. This
pattern, however, turned out to be insignificant. A significant inverse relation was found between visual short-term memory span and
the subjective alertness. We propose that a distinct pattern for diurnal variation of visual short-term memory might exist for both genders
... While a number of such studies have tested at only two times of day, e.g. Baddeley et al. (1970) who found a decrease in digit span from mid-morning to mid-afternoon, the author has been unable to find any published studies that are inconsistent with such an interpretation. Further, this function must be regarded as having considerable generality in that it has been found with both male and female school children (Winch, 1912a, b ;Gates, 1916a), naval ratings (Blake, 1967a) and undergraduates (Gates, 1916b; Baddeley et al., 1970), using a variety of tests ranging from digit span (Blake, 1967a;Baddeley et al., 1970) to memory for items within a story, or to associative learning (Gates, 191 6 b ) . ...
... Baddeley et al. (1970) who found a decrease in digit span from mid-morning to mid-afternoon, the author has been unable to find any published studies that are inconsistent with such an interpretation. Further, this function must be regarded as having considerable generality in that it has been found with both male and female school children (Winch, 1912a, b ;Gates, 1916a), naval ratings (Blake, 1967a) and undergraduates (Gates, 1916b; Baddeley et al., 1970), using a variety of tests ranging from digit span (Blake, 1967a;Baddeley et al., 1970) to memory for items within a story, or to associative learning (Gates, 191 6 b ) . ...
... and Baddeley et al. (1970) account for this mid-morning superiority of short-term memory in terms of an arousal theory. I n doing so, they draw on the suggestion that arousal increases through the day (Kleitman, 1963;Colquhoun et al., 1968a, 3) and on the finding that short-term memory is impaired under conditions of high arousal (e.g. ...
Subjects performed two tests of logical reasoning at each of six different times of day. In terms of speed, preformance on both tests was found to improve markedly from 08.00 to 14.00 and then to fall off fairly rapidly. Accuracy was found to decrease fairly linearly over the day. The results are interpreted as indicating that the different functions relating performance efficiency to time of day found by previous workers are due to differences in task demands rather than to individual differences. It is suggested that the larger the short-term memory component of a task the earlier in the day performance peaks.
... Circadian arousal patterns affect explicit and implicit memory differentially depending on the time of testing (May, Hasher, & Foong, 2005). Explicit memory, that is, conscious recollection of previous experiences (Graf & Schacter, 1985), is better when tested at on-peak times of circadian arousal (Baddeley, Hatter, Scott, & Snashall, 1970;Hasher, Chung, May, & Foong, 2002;Intons-Peterson, Rocchi, West, McLellan, & Hackney, 1998;May, Hasher, & Stoltzfus, 1993;West, Murphy, Armilio, Craik, & Stuss, 2002;Yang, Hasher, & Wilson, 2007). In contrast, implicit memory, that is, performance facilitation in the absence of conscious recollection (Graf & Schacter, 1985;Schacter, 1987), may be better when tested at off-peak times of circadian arousal (May et al., 2005). ...
... That is, overall priming is reduced for ignored stimuli. In contrast to our hypothesis, priming for attended stimuli was not affected by time of day as one might expect on the basis of previous research showing that cognitive performance for explicit retrieval from memory benefits from testing at peak times of circadian arousal (Baddeley et al., 1970;Hasher et al., 2002;Intons-Peterson et al., 1998;May et al., 1993;West et al., 2002;Yang et al., 2007). ...
We investigated whether circadian arousal affects perceptual priming as a function of whether stimuli were attended or ignored during learning. We tested 160 participants on- and off-peak with regards to their circadian arousal. In the study phase, they were presented with two superimposed pictures in different colours. They had to name the pictures of one colour while ignoring the others. In the test phase, they were presented with the same and randomly intermixed new pictures. Each picture was presented in black colour in a fragment completion task. Priming was measured as the difference in fragmentation level at which the pictures from the study phase were named compared to the new pictures. Priming was stronger for attended than ignored pictures. Time of day affected priming only for ignored pictures, with stronger priming effects off-peak than on-peak. Thus, circadian arousal seems to favour the encoding of unattended materials specifically at off-peak.
... Variability in cognitive function can also be considered at intermediate or "micro-longitudinal" (Palmier-Claus et al. 2011) timescales, such as over hours or days. For instance, diurnal variability in cognitive processing is a robust phenomenon in all age groups (Baddeley et al. 1970). Importantly, the extent of this variability is known to increase with age (May et al. 1993) and in people with cognitive impairment (Paradee et al. 2005), indicating its relationship with health status. ...
... That is, although the predictive ability of the NANA cognitive tasks has not yet been assessed, they have shown convergent validity with other cognitive tasks that have been associated with a range of health outcomes. Importantly though, as the current studies were not designed to measure predictable patterns of cognitive change, such as those associated with diurnal variability (Baddeley et al. 1970) or experimentally induced physiological challenges (Balata et al. 2003; Somerfield et al. 2004), the ability of the tasks to reliably measure within-person changes in cognitive processing speed over micro-longitudinal timescales has yet to be established. The ability of the NANA tasks to reliably measure and predict changes in health and functional status therefore now needs to be formally tested in longitudinal studies. ...
Patterns of cognitive change over micro-longitudinal timescales (i.e., ranging from hours to days) are associated with a wide range of age-related health and functional outcomes. However, practical issues with conducting high-frequency assessments make investigations of micro-longitudinal cognition costly and burdensome to run. One way of addressing this is to develop cognitive assessments that can be performed by older adults, in their own homes, without a researcher being present. Here, we address the question of whether reliable and valid cognitive data can be collected over micro-longitudinal timescales using unsupervised cognitive tests.In study 1, 48 older adults completed two touchscreen cognitive tests, on three occasions, in controlled conditions, alongside a battery of standard tests of cognitive functions. In study 2, 40 older adults completed the same two computerized tasks on multiple occasions, over three separate week-long periods, in their own homes, without a researcher present. Here, the tasks were incorporated into a wider touchscreen system (Novel Assessment of Nutrition and Ageing (NANA)) developed to assess multiple domains of health and behavior. Standard tests of cognitive function were also administered prior to participants using the NANA system.Performance on the two “NANA” cognitive tasks showed convergent validity with, and similar levels of reliability to, the standard cognitive battery in both studies. Completion and accuracy rates were also very high. These results show that reliable and valid cognitive data can be collected from older adults using unsupervised computerized tests, thus affording new opportunities for the investigation of cognitive function.
... ToD seems to also affect older adults' performance in tasks that require cognitive processing. Specifically, a series of studies has found significant effects of this variable on short-term memory, 28 attention, 29 inhibitory control, 30 and semantic activation. 31 Besides the strict aspects of cognition, the role of sleep in mixed cognitive-affective brain processes has only very recently become the focus of research interest. ...
... 47,48 Such findings corroborate previous research suggesting that older adults are morning types in terms of their higher-level performance in tasks requiring a series of cognitive processes. [28][29][30] Moreover, the gap/interval of several hours from night sleep, without an intervening nap, may function as sleep deprivation condition for older adults, resulting in all the disadvantages for cognition that have been described by a large number of studies. 12,13 More specifically, as already mentioned, the EET is designed to examine emotion decoding from dynamic displays of genuine emotions that are fleeting and evolving. ...
It is well known that night sleep is a decisive factor for the effective functioning of human body and mind. In addition to the role of sleep, older adults report that they are ‘morning types’ and their cognitive and emotional abilities seem to be at a higher level in the morning hours. In this vein, the present study aimed at examining the effect of sleep combined with the ‘time of day’ condition on a specific ability which is crucial for interpersonal communication, that is, emotion recognition, in older adults. Specifically, the study compared older adults’ performance in decoding emotions from ecologically valid, dynamic visual cues, in two conditions: ‘early in the morning & after night sleep’, and ‘in the afternoon & after many hours since night sleep’. An emotion recognition task was administered to thirty seven community dweller older adults, twice. The results showed a statistically significant higher performance in decoding of all emotions presented, in the morning, compared to the afternoon condition. Pleasant surprise, sadness, and anxiety were revealed as the most difficult emotions to be recognized in the afternoon condition.
... Ils montrent que la récupération en mémoire est nettement plus importante quand la tâche est réalisée le matin (11 h) relativement aux autres heures. Ces données confortent des travaux antérieurs qui montraient que le nombre de mots correctement rappelés en mémoire immédiate était plus élevé dans la matinée que dans l'après-midi (Gates, 1916 ;Blake, 1967 ;Baddeley, Hatter, Scott, & Snashall, 1970). Plus récemment, Testu et Clarisse (1999) ont également montré, chez des enfants, que le rappel immédiat de mots et d'histoires est plus élevé à 9 h qu'à 15 h Dans une autre étude, Folkard, Monk, Bradbury et Rosenthall (1977) se sont intéressés au sein d'une même expérience à la mémoire à court terme et à la mémoire à long terme. ...
... Tout d'abord, les données confirment les résultats classiques concernant l'effet de l'heure de la journée et l'effet de la profondeur de traitement. Ainsi, il apparaît que les participants sont plus performants que ce soit en rappel et en reconnaissance, à 11 h qu'à 15 h Ceci confirme les travaux de Folkard et Monk (1980) montrant que, lorsque la mémoire est testée dans un délai court, le maximum de performance est obtenu en fin de matinée et s'accorde avec plusieurs travaux indiquant que la mémoire immédiate est plus performante le matin que l'après-midi (Gates, 1916 ;Blake, 1967 ;Baddeley et al., 1970 ;Hockey et al., 1972 ;Testu & Clarisse, 1999 ;Martin et al., 2008). Concernant l'effet du type d'encodage, et conformément à la théorie de la profondeur de traitement (Craik & Lockhart, 1972), nous observons de meilleures performances dans les deux tâches de mémoire lorsque les mots ont fait l'objet d'un encodage sémantique plutôt que structural. ...
To date, the studies designed in chronopsychology mainly concerned the intellectual abilities of children in a school setting. There are few studies on the impact of daily rhythm on memory function in adult participants. The objective of this study is to examine the effects of the depth of processing on memory encoding by the time of day. For this, 35 young adults have learned a list of words with in structural encoding condition (they had to count the number of syllables per target word) or a deep encoding condition (they had to make a sentence including the target word). They were then submitted to a free recall task and a recognition memory task. This paradigm was performed at two times of day: I lam, when attention is at its highest, and 3pm when the attention is lower. We find the usual effects of the depth of processing and the rhythmicity. Thus, regardless of the memory task, memory was better for semantic encoding than for structural encoding, and late in the morning rather than in the afternoon. More importantly, in the free recall task but not in the recognition memory task, the results supported the hypothesis that only the performances related to a deep encoding fluctuated throughout the day. It seems that deep encoding involves greater attentional resources than structural encoding and that these ones are sufficiently available only at times of day when the vigilance is more important. This study highlights the interactions between the encoding and retrieval processes in memory and their level of efficiency by time of day.
... Ils montrent que la récupération en mémoire est nettement plus importante quand la tâche est réalisée le matin (11 h) relativement aux autres heures. Ces données confortent des travaux antérieurs qui montraient que le nombre de mots correctement rappelés en mémoire immédiate était plus élevé dans la matinée que dans l'après-midi (Gates, 1916 ;Blake, 1967 ;Baddeley, Hatter, Scott, & Snashall, 1970). Plus récemment, Testu et Clarisse (1999) ont également montré, chez des enfants, que le rappel immédiat de mots et d'histoires est plus élevé à 9 h qu'à 15 h Dans une autre étude, Folkard, Monk, Bradbury et Rosenthall (1977) se sont intéressés au sein d'une même expérience à la mémoire à court terme et à la mémoire à long terme. ...
... Tout d'abord, les données confirment les résultats classiques concernant l'effet de l'heure de la journée et l'effet de la profondeur de traitement. Ainsi, il apparaît que les participants sont plus performants que ce soit en rappel et en reconnaissance, à 11 h qu'à 15 h Ceci confirme les travaux de Folkard et Monk (1980) montrant que, lorsque la mémoire est testée dans un délai court, le maximum de performance est obtenu en fin de matinée et s'accorde avec plusieurs travaux indiquant que la mémoire immédiate est plus performante le matin que l'après-midi (Gates, 1916 ;Blake, 1967 ;Baddeley et al., 1970 ;Hockey et al., 1972 ;Testu & Clarisse, 1999 ;Martin et al., 2008). Concernant l'effet du type d'encodage, et conformément à la théorie de la profondeur de traitement (Craik & Lockhart, 1972), nous observons de meilleures performances dans les deux tâches de mémoire lorsque les mots ont fait l'objet d'un encodage sémantique plutôt que structural. ...
... Baddeley (1999) proposed a working memory model that comprises two storage components: phonological and visuospatial, and a central executive control. The phonological storage is important to analyse verbal information, whereas the visuospatial storage is important to analyse visual information (Baddeley & Logie 1999;Baddeley et al. 1970). Phonological and visuospatial components are lateralised to the left and right hemispheres, respectively. ...
... Studies that tried to identify diurnal variations of memory have used mainly time of day protocols. Some of these studies found a better memory level in the morning, assessing shortterm memory with a digit span task (Blake 1967;Baddeley et al. 1970), long-term memory with a prose memory retention task (Petros et al. 1990) and working memory with a four box task (West et al. 2002). Other studies found a better memory level in the afternoon, assessing long-term memory with a task that measured retention of a passage (Laird 1925;Folkard & Monk 1980) and short-term memory with acoustic and semantic similarity tasks (Folkard 1979). ...
Working memory is a basic cognitive process that temporarily maintains the information necessary for the performance of many complex tasks such as reading comprehension, learning and reasoning. Working memory includes two storage components: phonological and visuospatial, and a central executive control. The objective of this study was to identify possible circadian rhythms in phonological and visuospatial storage components of working memory using a constant routine protocol. Participants were eight female undergraduate students, aged 17.5+0.93, range¼16 – 19 years old. They were recorded in the laboratory in a constant routine protocol during 30 h. Rectal temperature was recorded every minute; subjective sleepiness and tiredness, as well as phonological and visuospatial working memory tasks, were assessed each hour. There were circadian variations in correct responses in phonological and visuospatial working memory tasks. Cross-correlation analysis showed a 1-h phase delay of the phonological storage component and a 3-h phase delay of the visuospatial storage component with respect to rectal temperature. This result may explain the changes in the performance of
many complex tasks during the day.
... Periodicity is a property of many other psychological processes. For instance, cognition, especially memory, is impacted by circadian rhythms (Baddeley et al., 1970;Schmidt et al., 2007). Several stages are present in alternance during sleep (rapid eye movement and non-rapid eye movement phases, e.g., McCarley, 2007). ...
Sentiment analysis is the automated coding of emotions expressed in text. Sentiment analysis and other types of analyses focusing on the automatic coding of textual documents are increasingly popular in psychology and computer science. However, the potential of treating automatically coded text collected with regular sampling intervals as a signal is currently overlooked. We use the phrase "text as signal" to refer to the application of signal processing techniques to coded textual documents sampled with regularity. In order to illustrate the potential of treating text as signal, we introduce the reader to a variety of such techniques in a tutorial with two case studies in the realm of social media analysis. First, we apply finite response impulse filtering to emotion-coded tweets posted during the US Election Week of 2020 and discuss the visualization of the resulting variation in the filtered signal. We use changepoint detection to highlight the important changes in the emotional signals. Then we examine data interpolation, analysis of periodicity via the fast Fourier transform (FFT), and FFT filtering to personal value-coded tweets from November 2019 to October 2020 and link the variation in the filtered signal to some of the epoch-defining events occurring during this period. Finally, we use block bootstrapping to estimate the variability/uncertainty in the resulting filtered signals. After working through the tutorial, the readers will understand the basics of signal processing to analyze regularly sampled coded text.
... Several factors in our everyday life are expected to influence our cognitive and memory performance. Memory performance varies throughout the day (38,39), throughout seasons (40) but has also been reported to depend on sleep duration (41) and daily stress levels (42). Participants completed our tasks around the clock but by far the most tests were completed during the day. ...
Sensitive and frequent digital remote memory assessments via mobile devices hold the promise to facilitate the detection of cognitive impairment and decline. However, in order to be successful at scale, cognitive tests need to be applicable in unsupervised settings and confounding factors need to be understood. This study explored the feasibility of completely unsupervised digital cognitive assessments using three novel memory tasks in a Citizen Science project across Germany. To that end, the study aimed to identify factors associated with stronger participant retention, to examine test-retest reliability and the extent of practice effects, as well as to investigate the influence of uncontrolled settings such as time of day, delay between sessions or screen size on memory performance. A total of 1,407 adults (aged 18–89) participated in the study for up to 12 weeks, completing weekly memory tasks in addition to short questionnaires regarding sleep duration, subjective cognitive complaints as well as cold symptoms. Participation across memory tasks was pseudorandomized such that individuals were assigned to one of three memory paradigms resulting in three otherwise identical sub-studies. One hundred thirty-eight participants contributed to two of the three paradigms. Critically, for each memory task 12 independent parallel test sets were used to minimize effects of repeated testing. First, we observed a mean participant retention time of 44 days, or 4 active test sessions, and 77.5% compliance to the study protocol in an unsupervised setting with no contact between participants and study personnel, payment or feedback. We identified subject-level factors that contributed to higher retention times. Second, we found minor practice effects associated with repeated cognitive testing, and reveal evidence for acceptable-to-good retest reliability of mobile testing. Third, we show that memory performance assessed through repeated digital assessments was strongly associated with age in all paradigms, and individuals with subjectively reported cognitive decline presented lower mnemonic discrimination accuracy compared to non-complaining participants. Finally, we identified design-related factors that need to be incorporated in future studies such as the time delay between test sessions. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of fully unsupervised digital remote memory assessments and identify critical factors to account for in future studies.
... Regarding the diurnal effects, literature mentions that memory recall can relatively change during the day, and changes in the circadian rhythm can affect memory recall capacities. Research papers by Anderson et al. (1991) and Baddeley et al. (1970) mentioned that shortterm memory and long-term memory have significant diurnal effects, with morning individuals performing better in the morning and evening individuals performing better in the evening. However, extensive research on diurnal effects and auditory working memory alone is required as auditory working memory is an essential component of speech perception and any diurnal effect might indicate an overall impact of speech perception during the day. ...
The human circadian rhythmicity is an internal biological clock mechanism that enables them to effectively perform tasks during a particular time of the day, due to which they exhibit diurnal effects. The morningness-eveningness questionnaire classifies individuals as definitely morning, moderately morning, intermediate, moderately evening, and definitely evening type individuals based on their active performance during different times of the day. Literature show variations in visual, memory, audition, and other cognitive tasks throughout the day in every individual. The current study aimed to document the diurnal effects on auditory working memory, a phenomenon crucial for learning and academic outcomes and holds its role in various clinical and research fields. Thirty-two participants were enrolled (21 females and 11 males) and were classified based on the morningness-eveningness questionnaire. The Auditory Working Memory tests were carried out during the morning and evening for all the participants. Based on a parametric paired t-test, results reveal no significant differences between morning time and evening time across moderately morning, intermediate, and moderately evening groups implying that working memory is a higher-order function that shows no or negligible diurnal effects, unlike other lower-order functions like temporal processing of auditory signals.
... This might especially be the case for morning naps, during which the repertoire of 'previous day' elements was limited in large part only to travel to the lab and the lab experience itself. Moreover, memory encoding has been found to be more efficient in the morning than later at night, possibly due to circadian fluctuations in levels of arousal [40], which could in turn increase the incorporation rates of pre-sleep events in morning nap dreams. On the other hand, our finding that later awakening times predict higher rates of incorporation, although possibly confounded by the type of protocol used (overnight vs nap), is contrary to evidence that early night dreams more frequently incorporate recent experiences than do late night dreams [41,42] and that memories early in the sleep period are more episodic than semantic [43]. ...
The phenomenon of dreaming about the laboratory when participating in a sleep study is common. The content of such dreams draws upon episodic memory fragments of the participant’s lab experience, generally, experimenters, electrodes, the lab setting, and experimental tasks. However, as common as such dreams are, they have rarely been given a thorough quantitative or qualitative treatment. Here we assessed 528 dreams (N = 343 participants) collected in a Montreal sleep lab to 1) evaluate state and trait factors related to such dreams, and 2) investigate the phenomenology of lab incorporations using a new scoring system. Lab incorporations occurred in over a third (35.8%) of all dreams and were especially likely to occur in REM sleep (44.2%) or from morning naps (48.4%). They tended to be related to higher depression scores, but not to sex, nightmare-proneness or anxiety. Common themes associated with lab incorporation were: Meta-dreaming , including lucid dreams and false awakenings (40.7%), Sensory incorporations (27%), Wayfinding to, from or within the lab (24.3%), Sleep as performance (19.6%), Friends/Family in the lab (15.9%) and Being an object of observation (12.2%). Finally, 31.7% of the lab incorporation dreams included relative projections into a near future (e.g., the experiment having been completed), but very few projections into the past (2.6%). Results clarify sleep stage and sleep timing factors associated with dreamed lab incorporations. Phenomenological findings further reveal both the typical and unique ways in which lab memory elements are incorporated de novo into dreaming. Identified themes point to frequent social and skillful dream scenarios that entail monitoring of one’s current state (in the lab) and projection of the self into dream environments elaborated around local space and time. The findings have implications for understanding fundamental dream formation mechanisms but also for appreciating both the advantages and methodological pitfalls of conducting laboratory-based dream collection.
... Diurnal effects have been found to impact cognitive performance and mood. For example, research showed that short term memory is superior early in the morning and deteriorates over the day (Baddeley, Hatter, Scott, & Snashall, 1970). Also, hangover severity varies during the day, and different severity patterns have been identified to characterize drinkers (Verster et al., 2018). ...
Aims:
The alcohol hangover is typically investigated in student samples. However, alcohol hangovers are also reported by non-student drinkers, beyond the age and drinking behaviors of a student sample. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of a normal night of alcohol consumption on next-day cognitive performance in a non-student sample.
Methods:
Participants (N = 45) were recruited from a public drinking setting and participated in a naturalistic study comprising of a hangover test day and alcohol-free control day. On each test day, mood and hangover severity were assessed and participants completed a cognitive test battery consisting of a Stroop test, Eriksen's flanker test, spatial working memory test, free recall test, choice reaction time test, and intra-extra dimensional set shifting test.
Results:
On the hangover day, significantly impaired performance was revealed on all tests, except the intra-extra dimensional set shifting test. On the hangover day, significantly lower mood scores were observed for alertness and tranquility.
Conclusion:
The current study in a non-student sample confirms previous findings in student samples that cognitive functioning and mood are significantly impaired during alcohol hangover.
... In a brief review of some other pertinent studies, Baddeley, Hatter, Scott, and Snashall (1970) found that immediate memory for digits was better in the morning; Folkard and Monk (1978) found that long-term memory was superior for material learned in the afternoon, and Furnham and Rawles (1988), after testing 104 male recruits, aged 18-24 years, to a training school, concluded that spatial ability was better in the morning than at noon or in the evening. However, it must be noted that Furnham and Rawles' study was not a test-retest design; the 104 participants were divided into three groups. ...
... [3] Research shows that tasks reliant on short-term memory are better performed in the morning and those that require long-term memory are better performed in the afternoon when long-term memory is strongest. [22][23][24] Tasks that are similar in nature or in location should be grouped to maximize efficiency. Tasks that require other individuals should be coordinated with other diaries based on seniority. ...
... especially in individual activities. This finding could be viewed from the perspective of the quality of student time, which is better in the morning (Baddeley, Hatter, Scott, & Snashall, 1970;Goldstein, Hahn, Hasher, Wiprzycka, & Zelazo, 2007). However, we also observed a close relationship between the evening time slot and better academic performance in collaborative activities. ...
... The immediate and 24hour groups were tested in the afternoon, whereas the 12-hour wake group was tested in the evening, and the 12-hour sleep group was tested in the morning. Memory tests may be influenced by time of day (e.g., Baddeley, Hatter, Scott, & Snashall, 1970). The present study, however, required testing at different times of day to maintain equal retention intervals among the two 12-hour groups. ...
When individuals witness an event and are exposed to misleading postevent information, they often incorporate the misleading information into their memory for the original event, a phenomenon known as the misinformation effect. The present study examined the role of sleep in the misinformation effect. Participants (N = 177) witnessed two events; were exposed to misleading postevent information immediately, 12 hours later the same day, 12 hours later the next day, or 24 hours later; and then took a recognition test. All groups demonstrated the misinformation effect, and this effect was larger in groups with an overnight retention interval. Signal detection analyses revealed that sleep decreased sensitivity. These results suggest that sleep increases susceptibility to the misinformation effect, which may occur because sleep results in gist-based representations of original events or because sleep improves learning of postevent information. Implications for interviewing eyewitnesses are discussed.Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
... 00 a.m. This might be the reason why the PhD exam candidates preferred to take the test at 8:00 a.m. Moreover, in examining attention, Muyskens and Ysseldyke (1998) investigated levels of attention of 122 students during a day. The findings showed that students were more attentively engaged during morning. Another factor might be the memory factor. Baddeley et al. (1970) found that short-term memory improves from early to mid-morning and then decreases steadily over the day. Likewise, the Folkard's et al (1977) study proved that short-term memory recall was better in the morning than afternoon. Considering the multiple advantages of morning administration, it is recommended that the test administrators ...
Test administration conditions, namely, the timing of the test, the testing venues and the exam proctors/inspectors are influential factors that may introduce construct-irrelevant variance to a test, if ignored, and therefore render a test invalid, especially in the case of high-stakes tests. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the satisfaction of the PhD exam candidates with the administration conditions of the General English section of theNationalIranian PhD Entrance exam, focusing on the three above mentioned factors. The timing factor was investigated from the perspectives of suitability of the time, that is, morning administration, evening administration and time delay in administration. The testing venue included the location of testing venues, commuting, finding seats, ventilation and lighting of the venues and finally, the proctor/inspector factor looked into the presence of the inspectors, satisfaction with the behavior of the proctors, peacefulness of the session, refreshments and finally the possibility of cheating.The data were collected by a sixteen item questionnaire which was distributed among 173 PhD exam candidates, both males and females, in 30 different testing venues all over Iran. The results indicated that they were satisfied with all three factors and the entire exam administration process; however, they made some comments to improve the exam administration process.
... Plusieurs auteurs suggèrent que ces différences sont dues à des traitements différents mis en place préférentiellement à certains moments de la journée. Ainsi, le matin, quand la vigilance est faible, les performances seraient élevées pour les tâches impliquant un traitement automatique des informations, tandis qu'un niveau de vigilance plus élevé favoriserait des traitements plus élaborés, tels que le traitement des aspects sémantiques des informations en mémoire à long terme (Baddeley et al., 1970;Folkard, 1979;Folkard et al., 1976;Folkard & Monk, 1980;Lorenzetti & Natale, 1996;Oakhill & Davies, 1989 Blake (1971) fonction de l'âge, mais que l'après-midi les enfants plus jeunes (5-9 ans) présentent des performances plus faibles que le matin, alors que leurs aînés (10-partir de l'âge de 40 ans. Monk et Folkard (1985) expliquent les effets du vieillissement chez les travailleurs postés à partir de quatre facteurs : 1) les effets cumulatifs du travail posté sus-mentionnés, 2) un abaissement général de l'état de santé, 3) une diminution de l'amplitude des rythmes circadiens, et 4) une tendance à la profilisation du sommeil et/ou une tendance à la matinalité. ...
... However, only a few studies have been performed regarding long term memory (LTM). According to Folkard, et al., (1977) only three prior studies exploring LTM were discovered prior to their study, Baddeley, Hatter, Scott, and Snashall (1970), Hockey, Davis and Gray (1972) and Laird (1925). Since that time, several additional studies have been performed, exploring the topic (Monk and Kupfer 2007, Randler and Frech 2006, Hornik 1988Monk 1980, Folkard andMonk 1978). ...
This study explores circadian rhythms and their effects on long term recall in 127 college students. Students are exposed to a series of commercials over a period of time. Unaided recall is attempted two weeks later. Results from two studies (one examining recall in the morning at 9 AM and the other looking at recall at 3:30 in the afternoon) are tabulated and compared. A positive correlation between time of day recall and recall ability is found.
... Within the cognitive performance, the effect of circadian rhythm on memory system has been widely studied (Schmidt et al. 2007). The impact of time-of-day effect on retrieval from long-term memory has been taken into account in different studies (Baddeley et al. 1970;Hockey et al. 1972;Folkard et al. 1977;Millar et al. Thus, it has been postulated that digits are nodes linked to each other arithmetically according to specific associative relations across nodes (Ashcraft 1992). ...
The cognitive functioning varies during the day and it can be modulated by the time in which individuals reach their arousal peak during the day. Morning-types should have cognitive peak in the morning while evening-types should have cognitive peak in the evening, reflecting the synchrony effect. The aim was to investigate time-of-day and synchrony effects on long-term memory with a network-like structure, using semantic classification and number-matching tasks. Evening- and morning-types performed two tasks in three times of the day: morning, afternoon and evening. In semantic classification task, a time-of-day effect was found while synchrony effect did not. Moreover, the circadian typology seemed to modulate the retrieval efficiency from long-term memory. In number-matching task, no time-of-day as well as synchrony effects were reliable. As before, the circadian typology seemed to influence the retrieval of semantic information. The study may demonstrate that circadian typology seems to differ for the strategies in retrieval information from memory with a network-like structure.
... Ce niveau est d'autant plus bas que la tâche est difficile (Fraisse, 1968), d'où des effets opposés de l'audience ou de la co-action (facilitation ou inhibition) en fonction de la difficulté des épreuves. Nous pensons également avec Blake, 1967, 1971; Baddeley, Hatter, Scott, et Snashall, 1970; Folkard, 1975, que du dépassement ou non de ce seuil dépend la nature des profils journaliers de performances (Testu, 1994). Nous pouvons donc supposer que la dimension psychosociologique du mode de passation influe non seulement sur les niveaux de performances mais également sur les fluctuations journalières, ceci de par la modification des seuils qu'elle est susceptible d'entraîner. ...
Two studies investigated if test protocol (individual or group testing) changes the level of performance in school and psychotechnical tests and/or influences diurnal patterns of test performance (rhythmidty) . Mathematical problems, number cancellation and a spatial structuration (blocks) test were administered four times in individual or group situations at 08:45, 11:45, 13:45, and 16:15. For the two experiments, the population samples were respectivily composed of 32 and 20 ten-to eleven-year-old pupils.
The first experiment showed an influence of test protocol on performance for the cancellation test and intellectual rhythmicity for the cancellation and spatial structuration tests. The results of the first experiment were confirmed in the second experiment. An influence of the test protocol was linked to the nature of the task. There was little influence of gender. During the group testing situation we found better performance on the cancellation task and during the individual testing situation performance on the structuration test was improved. We observed a disappearance (cancellation) or an inversion (blocks) in diurnal variation between the group and individual testing situations.
... But does metamemory ability fluctuate with internal factors that do not require intervention from an experimenter? It has been known for a long time that various cognitive abilities, including memory, may be affected by the fluctuations in subjective arousal that occur naturally throughout the day (e.g., Baddeley, Hatter, Scott, & Snashall, 1970;Blake, 1967;Folkard, Monk, Bradbury, & Rosenthal, 1977;May et al., 1993;Millar, Styles, & Wastell, 1980). The goal of the present study is to determine whether metacognitive judgments are sensitive to this effect, and also to evaluate whether metamemory ability fluctuates with time of day. ...
Although there is an abundance of research on how stimulus characteristics and encoding conditions affect metamemory, and how those effects either do or do not mirror effects on memory, there is little research on whether and how characteristics of participants' states-like mood, fatigue, or hunger-affect metamemory. The present study examined whether metamemory ability fluctuates with time of day. Specifically, we evaluated whether learners can successfully account for the effects of time of day on their memory, and whether metacognitive monitoring is more accurate at an individual's optimal time of day. Young adults studied and recalled lists of words in both the morning and the afternoon, providing various metamemory judgements during each test session. We replicated the finding that young participants recalled more words in the afternoon than in the morning. Prior to study, participants did not predict superior recall in the afternoon, but they did after they had an opportunity to study the list (but before the test on that material). We also found that item-by-item predictions were more accurate in the afternoon, suggesting that self-regulated learning might benefit from being scheduled during times of day that accord with individuals' peak arousal.
... especially in individual activities. This finding could be viewed from the perspective of the quality of student time, which is better in the morning (Baddeley, Hatter, Scott, & Snashall, 1970;Goldstein, Hahn, Hasher, Wiprzycka, & Zelazo, 2007). However, we also observed a close relationship between the evening time slot and better academic performance in collaborative activities. ...
Along with the amount of time spent learning (or time-on-task), the quality of learning time has a real influence on learning performance. Quality of time in online learning depends on students' time availability and their willingness to devote quality cognitive time to learning activities. However, the quantity and quality of the time spent by adult e-learners on learning activities can be reduced by professional, family, and social commitments. Considering that the main time pattern followed by most adult e-learners is a professional one, it may be beneficial for online education programs to offer a certain degree of flexibility in instructional time that might allow adult learners to adjust their learning times to their professional constraints. However, using the time left over once professional and family requirements have been fulfilled could lead to a reduction in quality time for learning. This paper starts by introducing the concept of quality of learning time from an online student-centred perspective. The impact of students' time-related variables (working hours, time-on-task engagement, time flexibility, time of day, day of week) is then analyzed according to individual and collaborative grades achieved during an online master's degree program. The data show that both students' time flexibility (r = .98) and especially their availability to learn in the morning are related to better grades in individual (r = .93) and collaborative activities (r = .46).
... Dovepress Dovepress required for cognitive processing. 42,43 Baddeley et al 44 proposed a model of working memory that includes three storage components: phonologic, visuospatial, and an episodic buffer. The phonologic component stores verbal information, the visuospatial component stores visual information in a spatial map, and the episodic buffer component is a limited capacity temporary storage that integrates information from different sources into coherent episodes. ...
Circadian variations have been found in human performance, including the efficiency to execute many tasks, such as sensory, motor, reaction time, time estimation, memory, verbal, arithmetic calculations, and simulated driving tasks. Performance increases during the day and decreases during the night. Circadian rhythms have been found in three basic neuropsychological processes (attention, working memory, and executive functions), which may explain oscillations in the performance of many tasks. The time course of circadian rhythms in cognitive performance may be modified significantly in patients with brain disorders, due to chronotype, age, alterations of the circadian rhythm, sleep deprivation, type of disorder, and medication. This review analyzes the recent results on circadian rhythms in cognitive performance, as well as the implications of these rhythms for the neuropsychological assessment of patients with brain disorders such as traumatic head injury, stroke, dementia, developmental disorders, and psychiatric disorders.
... The recording samples can be two or more during the day. Results from studies using time-of-day recordings have documented circadian variations in choice serial reaction time, vigilance, card sorting, letter cancellation, digit span, arithmetic operations (Blake, 1967), memory tasks (Baddeley et al., 1970; Folkard & Monk, 1980), and time perception (Kuriyama et al., 2003). A constant routine protocol consists of measuring physiological variables, such as body temperature, melatonin or cortisol levels, at regular intervals (one or two hours) for at least 24 hours. ...
Attention processes involve different components, such as phasic alertness, selective attention and vigilance (sustained attention, concentration). The aim of this study was to identify possible circadian rhythms in these attention components. Eight female undergraduate students (mean age 17.5 yr, SD = 0.93, range 16 – 19 yr) participated voluntarily in this study; they attended classes from 7:00 to 13:30 hours, from Monday to Friday. Each subject was recorded in a constant routine protocol for 30 h, during which rectal temperature was recorded at one-minute intervals. Sleepiness, tiredness and a continuous performance task were assessed each hour. All performance measures showed a decline through the 30-h session. Indicators of tonic alertness, phasic alertness and selective attention showed circadian variations, whereas indicators of vigilance (sustained attention, concentration) did not show circadian variations. Circadian variations in these attention components may be critical for the performance of many tasks, such as memory, reading, arithmetic calculation, etc. Dissociation of vigilance from the other attention components suggests a strong link between this variable and fatigue (homeostatic process). Circadian variations in attention components are also relevant to the decrease of productivity and higher risk of accidents during night shift work.
... Human performance is modulated by both circadian rhythms and homeostatic changes (Carrier & Monk, 2000). Circadian rhythms in performance have been observed in many tasks, such as sensory (Lotze et al., 1999) and motor tasks (Edwards et al., 2007(Edwards et al., , 2008Jasper et al., 2009aJasper et al., , 2009b, reaction time (Wright et al., 2002), memory (Baddeley et al., 1970;Folkard & Monk, 1980;Ramírez et al., 2006), reading comprehension (Petros et al., 1990), arithmetic calculations (Blake, 1967), central processing speed (Bratzke et al., 2007), task-switching (Bratzke et al., 2009), and time estimation (Campbell et al., 2001;Kuriyama et al., 2003), among others (Rosenberg et al., 2009). Performance tends to improve during the day and deteriorate during the night (Carrier & Monk, 2000;Colquhoun, 1971;Lavie, 1980). ...
Human performance is modulated by circadian rhythms and homeostatic changes. Changes in efficiency in the performance of many tasks might be produced by variation in a basic cognitive process, such as sustained attention. This cognitive process is the capacity to respond efficiently to the environment during prolonged periods (from minutes to hours). There are three indices of sustained attention: general stability of efficiency, time on task stability, and short-term stability. The objective of this work was to analyze circadian and homeostatic influences on the indices of sustained attention. Participants were nine undergraduate female student volunteers (mean age 17.67 yrs, SD = 1.00, range 16-19 yrs) who attended school from 07:00-13:30 h, Monday to Friday. They were assessed while adhering to a modified 28 h constant-routine protocol during which feeding, room temperature, motor activity, and room illumination were controlled. Rectal temperature was recorded each minute, and indices of sustained attention were assessed hourly through a continuous performance task (CPT). General stability was measured as standard deviation of correct responses and reaction time, time on task stability was measured as the linear regression of correct responses and reaction time throughout the task, and short-term stability was measured as hit runs and error runs. Rectal temperature showed circadian variation; subjective somnolence and tiredness increased, while general performance and all indices of sustained attention declined throughout the 28 h recording session. General stability exhibited circadian variation, whereas time on task did not. Short-term stability showed circadian variations in short-error runs, long-error runs, and short-hit runs, but long-hit runs did not. There was a 26 sec short interval at the beginning of the task, characterized by a very high efficiency level of performance. Execution during this safe period was not affected by time awake and did not show circadian variation. Overall, these results suggest a dissociation of the effects of circadian and homeostatic factors on the indices of sustained attention. General stability, short- and long-error runs, and short-hit runs were modulated by both a homeostatic factor and a circadian effect, while long-hit runs and time on task stability were modulated only by a homeostatic factor and did not show circadian variation. There was also a 26 sec "safe period" that seems to be independent of circadian and homeostatic influences. These results suggest that performance at work deteriorates at the end of a shift due to a decrease in general stability, an increase in error runs, decrease of long-hit runs, and decline with time on task. Night shiftworkers are exposed to an additional deterioration of performance during the nighttime due to a decrease in general stability and an increase in error runs.
... Laboratory experiments over the past decades demonstrated that indeed a number of different cognitive functions are subject to circadian rhythms such as alertness (West, Murphy et al. 2002), attention ((Blake 1967); (Yoon, May et al. 1999)), working memory (West, Murphy et al. 2002), recall speed ((Petros, Beckwith et al. 1990); (Anderson, Petros et al. 1991)), short-term memory (Baddeley, Hatter et al. 1970), recognition (May, Hasher et al. 1993), executive functioning (Yoon, May et al. 1999), and inhibitory processes ((May and Hasher 1998); (Hasher, Chung et al. 2002)). Yoon (1997) also showed that people are more likely to use schema-based processing strategies during their non-optimal time than strategies that are based on details. ...
Increases in life expectancy and progress in medical treatments will dramatically change the age distribution of Western societies over the next few decades. The U.S. population of people age 65 and older is expected to double from 36 million in 2003 to 72 million in 2030, representing an increase from 12% of the population in 2003 to 20% in 2030. These demographic shifts pose a major challenge for survey methodologists. Normal aging is associated with a decline in many cognitive abilities that play a prominent role in the processes underlying respondents??? answers to survey questions. Hence, normal cognitive aging may be associated with increased difficulties in answering survey questions, resulting in poorer data quality. This dissertation addresses this possibility and explores when and how cognitive aging can introduce survey errors. It consists of three essays.
The first essay addresses whether age-related decline in cognitive functioning increases the likelihood that respondents rely on cognitively less taxing response strategies when answering behavioral frequency questions. The results show that older respondents are more likely to use strategies associated with overreporting, although reliance on these strategies did not produce overall differences in response accuracy. The second essay attempts to disentangle the influence of cognitive aging, decline in physical health and changes in social networks on panel attrition in studies of the elderly. It shows that cognitive aging as well as physical decline increase the likelihood of a proxy-interview compared to a self-interview in the next wave but exert no influence on the likelihood of a refusal. The use of proxy interviews seems to be an important tool to minimize panel attrition bias. The third essay explores how diurnal cycles influence the quality of older respondents??? survey answers. In general, older adults show better cognitive performance early rather than late in the day, suggesting that time-of-day of the interview may affect data quality. This hypothesis received no support, nor could the usually obtained diurnal differences in cognitive functioning be observed in the survey context.
The main objective of the current study was to investigate the effect of time of day on visual and auditory, short-term memory (STM), and long-term memory (LTM) distortions using a hybrid Deese-Roediger-McDermott procedure. In Experiment 1, we used semantically related words, whereas in Experiment 2 - words were characterized by phonological similarity. The results showed a relationship between modality and types of stimuli. In STM, more semantic errors were found in the evening for items presented visually and more errors following auditory presentation for phonologically similar words. In LTM, the analysis revealed a higher rate of semantic distortions in the evening hours for auditorily presented words. For words with phonological similarity, we observed more errors in the evening without the effect of modality. The results support the hypothesis that more reliance is placed on elaborative processing in the evening and more on maintenance processing in the morning; however, this is not modality invariant.
Working memory (WM) performance is not constant throughout the 24-hours cycle. Daily oscillations in WM performance are modulated by interactions between circadian and homeostatic factors. However, investigations that ascertained the circadian rhythm(s) of WM found contradictory results regarding the moments in which the lowest and highest peaks of WM performance occur across the light-dark cycle. This review analyses the findings and methodological approaches of past studies that assessed the circadian cycle(s) of WM and explores the main methodological constraints that may explain their mixed findings. Such differences may be explained by (1) the use of diverse experimental protocols; (2) the employment of different degrees of control of confounding exogenous variables; (3) the application of different types of WM paradigms; (4) the use of different conceptualizations and operationalizations to assess the daily rhythm(s) of WM. Some investigations that evaluated the daily pattern of WM performance considered this cognitive function as a single unit and used general/single measures of WM capacity to estimate the parameters of its circadian cycle, while others tried to disentangle the daily rhythms of the subcomponents of WM. Findings of structural and neurobehavioral studies suggest that the subcomponents of WM present independent circadian rhythms.
Objective:
To compare before- and after-school neurocognitive performance and total symptoms in a sample of nonconcussed high school athletes.
Design:
Repeated-measures, counterbalanced design.
Setting:
Midwest high schools.
Participants:
Thirty-nine nonconcussed high school athletes.
Interventions:
The Immediate Post-Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing battery was administered before and after school in a counterbalanced testing order.
Main outcome measures:
Neurocognitive and total symptom scores.
Results:
Paired-sample t tests revealed no significant differences in verbal memory (P = 0.43), visual memory (P = 0.44), processing speed (P = 0.94), reaction time (P = 0.16), or total symptoms (P = 0.52) between before- and after-school testing sessions.
Conclusions:
The results of this study expand on best practice guidelines for baseline and postinjury concussion computerized neurocognitive testing and symptom report administration. This study suggests that sports medicine professionals can administer computerized neurocognitive testing before or after school without concern of confounding factors affecting performance or total symptoms.
We examined the effects of a 15-min nap after lunch on subsequent alertness, performance, and autonomic function following a short sleep the preceding night. Subjects were 12 healthy students who had slept for only 4 hours the night before being tested. They experienced both nap and no-nap conditions in a counterbalanced order, at least a week apart. The nap condition included a 15-min nap opportunity (12:30-12:45) in bed with polygraphic monitoring. We measured the P300 event-related potential, subjective sleepiness (Visual Analog Scale), and electrocardiogram (ECG) at 10:00, 13:15, and 16:15, and task performance (logical reasoning and digit span) at 10:00, 11:30, 13:15, 14:45, 16:15, and 17:45. Mean home sleep measured by actigraphy was 3.5 hours under both conditions. At 13:15, the P300 latency after the nap was significantly shorter than after no nap, but its amplitude was not affected by napping. Subjective sleepiness at 13:15 and 14:45 was significantly lower, and accuracy of logical reasoning at 13:15 was significantly higher after the nap than after no nap. No other performance measures or the ECG R-R interval variability parameters differed significantly between the nap and no-nap conditions. Mean total sleep time during the nap was 10.2 min, and no stage 3 and 4 sleep was observed. The above results suggest that under prior sleep deficit, a 15-min nap during postlunch rest maintains subsequent alertness and performance, particularly in the mid-afternoon.
This paper reviews the contribution of the author’s laboratory to aspects of vigilance. A proposed 2/day endogenous rhythm of sleep propensity has been confirmed. Ultradian fluctuations in vigilance tasks and in EEG measures of alertness related to sleep quality were documented. Subjective measures have been found to be entirely unreliable in sub-chronic (5 days sleep deprivation) and chronic (narcoleptics’) sleepiness. Performance deficits were seen both during episodes of drowsiness and after arousals from them (i.e., as ‘sleepiness inertia’). Slow waxing and waning of alertness rather than punctate ‘microsleeps’ determined performance deficits in sleepy patients. Evoked potentials were a sensitive measure of sleepiness which helped differentiate qualitatively different states of ‘REM sleepiness’ and ‘NREM sleepiness’.
It has been asserted that long-term memory functions better during the afternoon than the morning. Reading comprehension depends very much on the use of long-term memory . Therefore, a study was conducted to determine whether afternoon reading instruction, more than morning, results in greater achievement for beginning readers with high and low initial ability . An ex post facto design with random selection of 100 first grade pupils was used. An analysis of covariance on pretest and posttest achievement scores revealed a statistically significant main effect for time-of-day of instruction, but no interaction between time and ability . Implications for practice and continued research are discussed.
Independent groups of school children were read a story at either 09.00 or 15.00. The results from those children receiving an immediate memory test were in line with previous studies, children who were read the story at 09.00 obtained higher immediate memory scores than those who were read the story at 15.00. However, when the memory test was delayed by one week, children who were read the story at 15.00 obtained higher memory scores than those who were read it at 09.00. This superiority of delayed recall following 15.00 presentation was unaffected by the time of day at which the recall was made, and is consistent with previous studies on the effect of arousal on long-term memory. It is pointed out that the current practice of teaching most academic matter in the morning is based on early studies, and that these studies failed to take account of the interaction now known to exist between arousal level at presentation and the delay of recall.
In order to understand psychophysiological background of the individual differences on the diurnal variation of task performance, the task performance (i.e. the number of a simple adding calculation performed in one minute) was measured from 09:30 in the morning to 21:30 in the late evening for 9 healthy university male students. Heart rate (HR) and body temperature were also continuously recorded for 35 hours. There were two different types in the diurnal variation of the task performance; the morning type who shows the best performance in the morning, and the evening type who shows it in the evening. The body temperature curve during daytime in the evening type goes gradually up to the evening, on the contrary, that in the morning type rapidly rises to the maximum point in the morning or the afternoon. HR during daytime were higher in the morning type than the evening type. These results indicate that the morning type has a tendency of the higher mental tension compared with the evening type. And they also suggest that the individual differences on the task performance with a large mental concentration are caused by some kinds of subject's psychosomatic state.
In Australian schools, comparisons were made of the story recall of 70 average readers in grade five under five picture-text conditions: the absence of a picture; two conditions in which three normal, related pictures were presented before or after related text; and two conditions in which three composite, related pictures were presented before or after related text. Recalls were scored according to Frederiksen's (1975) system of text analysis. An observable trend in group means, suggesting that pictures aided recall, did not reach significance, and neither picture placement nor picture composition influenced comprehension. The absence of an advantage for the picture conditions may have been due to the ability of grade five readers to extract sufficient information from the text alone. The second study made similar comparisons with 48 younger grade three children. Again, an observed advantage for the picture conditions did not reach significance. An experiments-by-conditions analysis over both studies indicated that illustrations did significantly improve performance, but that picture placement (before or after related text) did not affect recall. A final experiment examined the influence of further picture-text relationships on comprehension (N=80). Variables examined were the number of pictures (three or eight) and the type of picture (normal or composite). In contrast to the previous studies, pictures were situated adjacent to related text. While there were clear differences in recall favouring the picture groups, there was no advantage for the number of pictures or the type of picture. It was concluded that the influence of illustrations on comprehension was small for children of normal reading ability and depended to a large extent on their placement adjacent to related textual material.
A total of 72 grey-green fine-grained sandstone and siltstone core samples (from 10 sites) were collected from the Early Cretaceous Jieshan and Hekou Formations at Yongan, in the Huanan Block of southeastern China (Fujian Province). After removal of an erratic soft magnetic component in fields of 10–20 mT, stable magnetizations were retrieved from both rock units which are carried mainly by single-domain/pseudo-single-domain (SD/PSD) magnetite or titanomagnetite, as suggested by isothermal remanent magnetization, coercivity measurements and microscopic observations. The Hekou Formation yields a tilt-corrected pole at 66.9°N, 221.4°E (n=5 sites, K=203.3, A95=5.4°). A fold test on this result suggests that the magnetization was acquired before tilting which occurred shortly after deposition (between Early and Late Cretaceous). This magnetization is related to a primary sedimentary fabric, as indicated by the low-field anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility (AMS) measurements. The positive fold test and occurrence of a primary sedimentary fabric suggest a depositional origin for the stable magnetization. The Jieshan Formation gives a pole at 70.8°N, 228.7°E (n=5 sites, K=47.7, A95=11.2°) in geographic coordinates, which is statistically indistinguishable from the tilted pole for the Hekou Formation. The associated stable magnetization corresponds to a secondary fabric. These features indicate that the Jieshan Formation has been remagnetized during Cretaceous time. The predominance of SD/PSD magnetite or titanomagnetite and igneous activities in eastern Fujian during the Cretaceous suggest a viscous thermal remanent magnetization origin for the secondary magnetization.
Background and objective: Circadian variations have been found in the performance of many human activities. The performance of many tasks depends on basic cognitive processes, such as executive functions. One of the components of these functions is the capacity to adjust behavior to environmental changes. The objective of this study was to identify circadian rhythms in the capacity to adjust behavior to environmental changes. Methods: Three college students were recorded in a constant routine protocol for 29 hours, starting at noon. Rectal temperature was measured every minute, and their performance on a tracking task was assessed every 1 hour and 40 minutes. In this task, each participant observed a circle following a linear path with a constant speed. Each time the circle appeared, the participant had to place a cursor inside the circle and press the left button of the mouse. After a variable number of circles, the path and speed were modified, and the participants’ capacity to efficiently respond to these changes was measured. Results: All participants showed a decreased capacity to adjust their behavior to changes in the tracking task at night and early in the morning. Conclusions: Circadian variations were observed in people’s capacity to adjust their behavior to changes in the tracking task. This capacity was reduced at night and early in the morning. This impairment might lead to errors and accidents in night-shift workers.
Consistent effects of time of day have been observed in digit span/sequence performance, and in the immediate memory for information presented in prose. However, studies using syntactically unstructured word lists have yielded inconsistent results. Three experiments were conducted that examined the free recall of 15 word lists. In all three, immediate recall from the pre-recency positions was found to be superior in the morning to the afternoon. This superiority disappeared after a 20-min delay (Experiment 1) and under articulatory suppression (Experiment III), but was unaffected by a manipulation that equated recall order (Experiment II). Immediate recall from the recency positions showed a W-shaped trend over the day (Experiment I) that might account for the inconsistencies previously reported. It is suggested that the changes in recall from the pre-recency positions may reflect a decrease in maintenance, and increase in elaboration, over the day. Such a change in processing strategy could itself reflect an increase in attentional selectivity associated with the changes in basal arousal level commonly held to occur over the day.
This study examined performance in tests of word recall recognition, and continuous retrieval from natural semantic categories in the morning and evening. Immediate recall was superior in the morning. The ability to sustain search of semantic memory (over 8 min per category) was superior in the evening. Results replicated and extended previous research, which suggests that time of day exerts differential effects on episodic and semantic memory, thus providing further evidence that these two memory systems are clearly distinct.
It has been demonstrated that retrieval performance from semantic memory varies during the day. Specifically, the retrieval of low- relative to high-dominance category members is slower in the morning compared to later in the day. It has been suggested that the effect is related to a circadian arousal rhythm, which steadily rises during the day and rapidly declines at night. This study examines retrieval from semantic memory during the night. Sixteen subjects performed a semantic classification task once every hour throughout one night without sleep. Classification latencies became progressively slower, and the time taken to retrieve low- relative to high-dominance category members increased from midnight to 4 a.m. The trend reversed between 4 and 7 a.m. The pattern of results closely parallels the hypothesised circadian arousal rhythm. It is suggested that the variation in retrieval performance as a function of time of day may be related to fluctuations in a circadian arousal rhythm.
Of 60 male BDE rats, some were given fixed training sessions daily, controls irregularly. Some animals were allowed a preliminary 3-week training period to grow accustomed to the fixed time, others were not. The task was to obtain food pellets by pressing a lever, combined with a stimulus light, alternately to left and right. One training program continued daily uninterrupted, a second introduced a “rest” day on every 7th day. Rats with preliminary experience learnt the task faster than controls. An interposed “rest” day obliterated differences in learning rates. When training was prolonged, rats without preliminary experience also performed better than controls.
Few studies have examined mood state-dependent retention—the notion that when the affective states accompanying learning and remembering are the same, information will be retained better than when they differ. Three experiments were conducted to examine state-dependent retention using a simple mood induction procedure and an unselected population of college students. Self-statements developed by Velten (1968) were chosen to influence subjects to feel somewhat depressed or elated or to experience no mood change. A 2 2 experimental design, incorporating a single word list and varying the mood conditions present during learning and later testing, was used in each of the first two experiments, neither of which revealed state dependence. However, a significant effect was found in the third experiment, which employed an interference paradigm. Subjects learned two lists of words under differing mood conditions. Testing was conducted under one of two mood conditions, elation or depression. Methodological issues and clinical implications of these findings are discussed.
Previous studies have led to the beliefs: (1) that short-term memory is best during the night when the body temperature is at its nadir, and (2) that the circadian rhythms of short-term memory and subjective alertness are driven by oscillators independent from each other and from the body temperature cycle. Unfortunately, these conclusions, which would have major implications for understanding the organization of the human circadian timing system, are largely based on field and laboratory studies, which in many cases sampled data infrequently and/or limited data collection to normal waking hours. In order to investigate these points further, we have monitored behavioural variables in two different protocols under controlled laboratory conditions: (1) during a period of 36-60 h of sustained wakefulness; and (2) during forced desynchrony between the body temperature and sleep/wake cycles, allowing testing of non-sleep-deprived subjects at all circadian phases. Contrary to earlier findings, we report here that the circadian rhythm of short-term memory varies in parallel with the circadian rhythms of subjective alertness, calculation performance, and core body temperature under both these experimental conditions. These results challenge the notion that short-term memory is inversely linked to the body temperature cycle and suggest that the human circadian pacemaker, which drives the body temperature cycle, is the primary determinant of endogenous circadian variations in subjective alertness and calculation performance as well as in the immediate recall of meaningful material.
Eighteen normal male nurses were tested on a battery of simple psychomotor tasks, subjective self-ratings and physiological tests on three weekly occasions, during the 6th day of each shift (morning, afternoon, night) of their actual job rotation pattern.
The shift order was assigned according to a fully balanced design and the tests were carried out between the 3rd and the 5th h from the beginning of work (approximately at 10 a.m., 6 p.m., and 2 a.m.). During the night shift, the subjects rated themselves as most tired and reported higher perceived exertion at different work loads performed on a bicycle ergometer. None of the psychological and physiological variables showed significant inter-shift differences except heart rate and blood pressure: both were lower in the night, the former only at rest and after a light effort, the latter only under hardest work loads. A very high correlation was found between perceived exertion and heart rate in all three shift conditions while a negative correlation between perceived exertion and extraversion emerged in the night occasion only. The present results are discussed and the hypothesis of an adaptation of performance, on most of the tests used, to this weekly rotating shift system is suggested.
Efficiency at ‘ mental ’ tasks was observed when performed according to a time schedule imposed by following one of two different 4-hour shift systems for a period of 12 consecutive days. Twenty-eight subjects were assigned either to a ‘ rotating ’ system, in which each 4-hour period of the 24 hours was worked once every 72 hours in a repeating cycle, or to a ‘ stabilized ’ system, in which the work periods were from 1230 to 1630 and 2400-0400 each day. In the rotating system, alterations in the level of several aspects of performance at different times of day were found to be related quite closely to concurrent fluctuations in body temperature arising from its natural circadian rhythm. A shift in the phase of this rhythm in response to the now sleep/waking cycle imposed by the stabilized system was accompanied by a corresponding change in the relative levels of performance observed in the two work periods. Thus in both systems body temperature was, in effect, a predictor of performance efficiency. Some implications for the organization of shift working are discussed
Three experiments on paired-associate learning were carried out, with disyllabic male first names as response terms. Exps. I and II, in which visual patterns served as stimulus terms, showed significantly fewer correct recalls when stimulus terms were more complex or incongruous. Familiarization of half of the stimulus terms before the first training trial made no appreciable difference, which casts doubt on the attribution of the effect to differences in arousal value. The effect seemed more likely to be due to presence or absence of symmetry.
White noise was used in Exp. II as a means of manipulating arousal. Recall was impaired when Ss were subjected to 72 db white noise during training and testing, and there was some indication that recall might be improved by 58 db white noise.
In Exp. III, stimulus terms were single adjectives, homogeneous double pairs of adjectives, and heterogeneous double pairs. One quarter of the items were learned under white noise and tested the next day under white noise, one quarter learned without white noise and tested under white noise, one quarter learned under white noise and tested without white noise, and one quarter learned and tested without white noise. Five groups of Ss had different intensities of white noise ranging between 35–75 db. It was found that recall, both on the training day and on the test day, was worse with heterogeneous double than with homogeneous double stimulus terms but equal with homogeneous double and single stimulus terms, corroborating the hypothesis that the symmetry factor had been responsible for the results of Exps. I and II. On the training day, there was significantly less recall with white noise than without white noise. On the test day, items learned under white noise the day before were recalled significantly more often than others, although there was a significant interaction between presence of white noise on training and test days. No significant effect of white noise during the test trial appeared. Variations in white-noise intensity had no significant influence.
PERFORMANCE ON 8 TASKS RANGING FROM NOVEL LABORATORY TESTS TO HIGHLY PRACTICED FAMILIAR SKILLS WAS MEASURED AT 5 TIMES OF DAY BETWEEN 8 AM AND 9 PM. 5 TASKS SHOWED A CONSISTENT TENDENCY FOR IMPROVEMENT IN EFFICIENCY; IN 1 TASK THERE WAS DETERIORATION; AND IN THE REMAINING 2 THE EFFECTS WERE NOT SIGNIFICANT. RESULTS SUGGEST THAT THE OBSERVED TRENDS ARE RELATED TO THE UNDERLYING STATE OF AROUSAL AS INDICATED BY BODY TEMPERATURE. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Evidence for a dichotomy between long-term memory (LTM) and short-term memory (STM) comes from: (a) amnesic patients with a normal digit span but defective LTM, and (b) tasks comprising two components, one labile (STM) and the other stable (LTM). This study examines the compatibility of (a) and (b) by comparing the performance of amnesic and control Ss on immediate and delayed free recall, the Peterson short-term forgetting task, development of PI in STM, minimal paired-associate learning, digit span, and the Hebb repeated digit-sequence technique. Results suggest that amnesic Ss have normal STM but defective LTM. There is some evidence of a stable component in certain STM tasks, on which amnesic Ss are also unimpaired. Implications for the dichotomy between STM and LTM are discussed.
This study is one of a series designed to test a general theory of perseverative consolidation. The theory states the expectations that consolidation will be accompanied by a negative bias against repetition during its course and that an increase in arousal will produce an increase in the negative bias against repetition as well as an increase in the ultimate capacity to recall.Seventy-two Ss were divided into 9 groups. Learning consisted of one trial with a list composed of 8 stimulus words and single digit numbers as response items. Three groups learned a high-arousal list, 3 groups a low-arousal list, and 3 learned a mixed list. Within each list type, one group recalled the list at 2 min. after learning, one group at 45 min., and one group at 1 week.The low-arousal list showed high immediate recall which decreased with time. The higharousal list showed some rise in recall with time. Other analyses agreed with the results of Kleinsmith and Kaplan (1963b) showing high immediate and low ultimate recall for items learned under low arousal, and low immediate recall and high ultimate recall for items learned under high arousal.Analyses are presented to account for the strong recency effect in the serial position curve for 2-min. recall in terms of short-term memory, and to account for the strong primacy effect in the one week recall serial position curve on the basis of arousal by serial position.
Thirty-one subjects were employed in an experiment to determine whether the relationship between efficiency at mental tasks and the circadian rhythm of body temperature observed in an earlier study was affected by an increase in the length of the duty-spell from 4 to 8 hours. Subjects wore assigned either to a control ‘ day ’ shift (O800–1600), a ‘ night ’ shift (2200–0600) or a ( morning ) shift (0400–1200), and were tested for a period of 12 consecutive days on the same shift. The control shift-workers showed no consistent effects of fatigue due to the increased length of the duty-spell. Adaptation of temperature rhythm to work on the night shift was only partial, but was relatively closely reflected in the recorded performance trends. Very little adaptation to work on the morning shift was observed, and performance was thought to have been affected by partial sleep deprivation. It was concluded that body-temperature was as effective a predictor of overall mental efficiency in most industrial-type shifts as in the special 4-hour shift system previously investigated.
Twenty-two subjects took part in an experiment to determine whether the relationship botween efficiency at mental tasks and the circadian rhythm of body temperature observed in two earlier studios was affected by an increase in the length of the duty spoil from S to 12 hours. Subjects wore assignod either to a control ‘ day ‘ shift (0800-2000) or a ‘ night‘ shift (2000-0800), and woro tested for a period of 12 consecutive days on the same shift. Some signs of fatigue duo to the oxeessive length of the duty-spell wero observed, but an underlying relationship between temperature and performance remained in evidence in some scores throughout the trial period. Adaptation of temperature rhythm to work on the night shift was only partial, and less marked than in a previously studied ' night ' work situation; the partial adaptation was nevertheless relatively closely reflected in the recorded performance trends. It was concluded that the rosults obtained in the present and previous studies in this series demonstrated that, within certain limits, the relationship between temperature and efficiency was sufficiently marked to warrant further research into its generality.
An experiment was carried out to test the hypothesis that size of phasic conductance response to an item is related positively to later recall of that item. Results confirmed the hypothesis with the additional finding that the positive relation increases with increasing delay in recall. Some attempt is made to explain the findings in terms of a simple memory process.
It has been shown that short-term memory (STM) for word sequences is grossly impaired when acoustically similar words are used, but is relatively unaffected by semantic similarity. This study tests the hypothesis that long-term memory (LTM) will be similarly affected. In Experiment I subjects attempted to learn one of four lists of 10 words. The lists comprised either acoustically or semantically similar words (A and C) or control words of equal frequency (B and D). Lists were learned for four trials, after which subjects spent 20 min. on a task involving immediate memory for digits. They were then asked to recall the word list. The acoustically similar list was learned relatively slowly, but unlike the other three lists showed no forgetting. Experiment II showed that this latter paradox can be explained by assuming the learning score to depend on both LTM and STM, whereas the subsequent retest depends only on LTM. Experiment III repeats Experiment I but attempts to minimize the effects of STM during learning by interposing a task to prevent rehearsal between the presentation and testing of the word sequences. Unlike STM, LTM proved to be impaired by semantic similarity but not by acoustic similarity. It is concluded that STM and LTM employ different coding systems.
In a paired-associate learning experiment, 75-db white noise during presentation of stimulus and response terms in training trials significantly increased recall in a test trial held 1 day later. White noise after the response made no significant difference, and there was no significant interaction. It produced no effects on anticipations during training nor on a test held immediately after training trials. The results are discussed with reference to 4 kinds of hypotheses regarding the relations between arousal and reinforcement and to the possible outcomes of interaction between short-term detrimental effects of arousal on performance and durable facilitatory effects of arousal on learning. (24 ref.)
Emotion reduces utilization of cues. In some tasks this can be an advantage (elimination of irrelevant cues); more often, however, such reduction inhibits performance. Attentive behavior fits into the framework of this theory. It can also be easily translated into terms of information theory allowing a qualitative evaluation of task difficulty.
This experiment tested the hypothesis that due to the phenomenon of preservative consolidation, a pattern perceived under high arousal should show stronger permanent memory and weaker immediate memory than a pattern accompanied by low arousal. While recording skin resistance as a measure of arsousal, 48 Ss were presented 8 paired associates for learning. The Ss were tested at various time intervals: 2 min., 20 min., 45 min., 1 day, and 1 wk. The results confirmed the hypothesis (p = .001). Paired associates learned under low arousal exhibited high immediate recall value and rapid forgetting. High arousal paired associates exhibited a marked reminiscence effect, that is, low immediate recall and hgh permanent memory.
Using meaningful paired associates as stimuli it has been shown previously that due to the phenomenon of perseverative consolidation high-arousal associates show stronger permanent memory and weaker immediate memory than low-arousal associates. The present experiment was designed to show that this phenomenon is independent of the association values or unique qualities of the words involved. While recording skin resistance as a measure of arousal, 36 Ss were presented 6 (0% association value) nonsense syllables paired with single-digit numbers. Ss were tested at 2 min., 20 min., or 1 wk. The results confirmed the hypothesis (p = .01). Nonsense syllable paired associates learned under low arousal exhibited high immediate recall and rapid forgetting. High-arousal associates exhibited a marked reminiscence effect, low immediate recall and high permanent memory.