Essay About Sleep Deprivation Affects Psychological Variables And Profile Of Mood States Scale

How Sleep Deprivation Affects Psychological Variables Related to College Students Cognitive Performance
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How Sleep Deprivation Affects Psychological Variables Related to College Students Cognitive Performance
Jenny R. Downs
Fall07, PSY 1513 41
General Psychology (MSVCC) (2575)
Sleep deprivation is very common for college students. A pattern is usually
developed with sleep deprivation peaking during the week and even more during exam
periods. Performance levels are significantly lower during these periods even though the
students beleived that their performance was better. Many studies have been conducted to
try to evaluate the effects of sleep deprivation on cognitive performance and on
psychological variables related to cognitive performance in college students. The study in
this reading included sixty-five volunteers. Of the sixty-five, only fourty-four participants
finished the study. In the study, the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal was given
to participants to measure cognitive performance. This test had a fourty minute time limit.
The Profile of Mood States scale was used simultaneously with the Watson-Glaser
Thinkin Appraisal to assess the mood of the volunteers. The entire study lasted from
10:00pm on a Friday night to 11:00am the next morning. Twenty-four hours of sleep
deprivation was all that was allowed for this experiment. No alcohol or non-prescription
drugs were allowed for this study. The result of the study concluded that the participants
that were sleep-deprived did much worse on the Watson-Glaser Thinking Appraisal than
did the participants who had sleep. The sleep deprived participants reported that they had
higher concentration, put in more effort and had better performance than the participants
that had no lack of sleep. The findings concluded that they did significantly worse than
the students that were not sleep-deprived. The only increases that the sleep-deprived
participants had were in fatigue and confusion. The study concluded that the non-
deprived participants did much better on complex cognitive tasks than the sleep deprived
participants. The sleep-deprived participants reportedly beleived that they did better than
the non-deprived group. The levels of off-task cognitions were not very different between
the two groups. Also, mood state, in the areas of fatigue and confusion, greatly affected
the sleep-deprived participants. The sleep-deprived participants were also shown to have
significantly more tension and less vigor than the non-deprived participants. The study
stated that college students that have been sleep-deprived are unknowingly causing
themselves to have worse performance on completing cognitive tasks than they would
have if they had sufficient sleep. College students constantly overrate themselves in the
areas of concentration, effort and performance when they are deprived of sleep. This
causes college students to believe that they are doing well on their tasks when they
actually are not. College students do not realize that by being sleep-deprived that it causes
fatigue and confusion as opposed to helping them do better on their cognitive tasks.
Sleep-deprived students in this study were not allowed to sleep for twenty-four hours.
At the end of the study, the students were given two questionaires to complete. One of the
questionaires that was used was the Watson-Glaser Thinking Appraisal. The Watson-
Glaser Thinking Appraisal was given to measure cognitive performance. The Watson-
Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal was limited to fourty minutes and was separated into
three sections: inference, recognition of assumptions and deduction. The means and
standard deviations of sleep and non-deprived participants on the Watson-Glaser
Thinking Appraisal are as follows: sleep-deprived participants-M 24.52, SD 21.29; non-
deprived-M 38.71, SD 25.63. The Watson-Glaser Thinking Appraisal was the main test
given to measure cognitive performance but SAS was also used for all statistical
analysis. The authors also measured cognitive performance, on all variables, by
performing multiple analysis of variance or MANOVA. The sleep-deprived students did
much worse on the Watson-Glaser Thinking Appraisal than the students that were not
sleep-deprived.
The participants mood was evaluated using the Profile of Mood States or POMS. On
the Profile of Mood States scale, current mood states were listed using sixty-five words.
The students could rate their current mood on a scale from zero to seven. The higher the
number