dement & kleitman (naomi) [done]

Question 1

what were the psychometrics used in this study? what were they used for?

Answer 1

• EEG (electroencephalogram) = traces cyclical changes that occur in brain activity during sleep. Electrodes are placed around the skull to analyze brain waves.
• EOG (electrooculogram) = traces eye movements during sleep. Uses electrodes placed around the eye region

Question 2

what is REM?

Answer 2

Rapid Eye Movement is when dreaming occurs.

Question 3

what is nREM?

Answer 3

Non-Rapid Eye Movement.

Question 4

what is the aim of the study?

Answer 4

General: To investigate the relationship between eye movements and dreaming.

Specific:
1. Does dream recall differ between REM and NREM stages of sleep?
2. Is there a positive correlation between estimated dream duration and REM period length?
3. Are eye movements related to the dream content?

Question 5

what is the hypothesis of the study?

Answer 5

1. There will be a significant association between REM sleep and dreaming.
2. There will be a positive correlation between estimated dream duration and REM period length.
3. There will be a significant association between eye movement patterns and dream content.

Question 6

what were the independent variables?

Answer 6

• Dream recall during REM and NREM sleep. They woke people up and asked them if they had dreamed.
• Asked participants to say how long their dreams had lasted.
• patterns of eye movements were related to the reported dream content. to test whether the movement represented a specific expression of the visual dream experience. FOUR eye movement patterns were recorded (1. mainly vertical, 2. mainly horizontal, 3. vertical & horizontal, 4. little or none).

Question 7

This was a laboratory experiment with ___ males and ___ females recruited through __opportunity sampling.

Answer 7

7 males….2 females….recruited through opportunity sampling.

Question 8

how was each aim tested? (experiment type and design)

Answer 8

1. (Does dream recall differ between REM and NREM stages of sleep?) natural experiment; repeated measures design.
2. (Is there a positive correlation between estimated dream duration and REM period length?) True experiment using correlational study; repeated measures design.
3. (Are eye movements related to the dream content?) The natural experiment; repeated measures design.

Question 9

what were participants told to do before the experiment and the type of sleeping conditions they had?

Answer 9

Participants reported to the lab before their personal bedtime. They ate their normal diet but
were asked to avoid caffeine (alertness) and alcohol (drowsiness) on the day of the study. They
slept in a dark, quiet room.

Question 10

when would participants be woken up?

Answer 10

All participants were woken up when an eye movement pattern lasted for at least a minute. Everyone returned to sleep in less than 5 minutes.

Question 11

what was the procedure to test if dream recall differs between REM and NREM stages of sleep?

Answer 11

They were woken up at various times to test their dream recall (during REM and
NREM). The dream narrative was recorded on a tape recorder. They were asked if they had a dream or not and if they did, then they recorded it.

Question 12

what was the procedure to test if there is a positive correlation between estimated dream duration and REM period length?

Answer 12

Participants were woken up after either 5 or 15 minutes into their REM sleep.
Participants guessed the duration they had dreamt for. The number of words in the dream narrative was counted after the participants reported their dream.

Question 13

what was the procedure to test if eye movements are related to the dream’s content?

Answer 13

Participants’s eye movement direction was detected with the EOG. Participants
were woken up and they reported their dream.

Question 14

what are the controls in the study?

Answer 14

• No communication between the experimenter and sleeper until after they told of their dream content
• In case the experimenter ‘suggested the content’
• They were NOT told whether they had been woken in REM sleep or NREM sleep
• Woken in BOTH REM and NREM
• Alcohol or caffeine avoided
• location of the study and sleeping time. - Subjects spoke into the recording device about the dreams in order to avoid the experimenter’s effects.
• Use of different patterns of awakenings as a counterbalance in the distribution

Question 15

what were the (general) results of the study?

Answer 15

• All participants had REM every night.
• REM sleep was characterized by a low voltage, relatively fast EEG pattern. In
  between the REM periods, EEG patterns indicating deeper sleep were either
  predominantly high voltage, slow activity, or frequent, well define sleep spindles
  with a low-voltage background.
• No REMs were observed during the initial onset of sleep
• REM periods lasted between 3 and 50 minutes with a mean of about 20
  minutes. The REM period tended to get longer the later in the night it occurred.
  The eyes were not constantly in motion during REM activity, instead, there were
  bursts of between 2 and 100 movements
• REM periods occurred at fairly regular intervals. The frequency was
  characteristic for every individual. WD averaged one REM period every 70
  minutes, for KC it was once every 104 minutes. The average was a REM
  episode every 92 minutes
• Despite the disturbance of being regularly awakened the REM periods were as frequent as those recorded in a previous study of uninterrupted sleep.
• If a participant was awakened during a REM period during the final hours of
  sleep, when such periods tended to be quite long, they often went back into
  REM sleep as if the heightened brain activity had not run its course

Question 16

what were the results of the test if dream recall differs between REM and NREM stages of sleep?

Answer 16

• For all participants, there was a high incidence of recall of dreams during REM periods and a low incidence of recall during NREM periods regardless of the
  patterns used to determine awakenings.
• However there were times when REM activity was not associated with a coherent dream and times when NREM sleep did produce a coherent dream
  recall.
• There were individual differences. Some participants were better able to recall their dreams
• If participants were awoken more than eight minutes after the end of the REM period, very few dreams were recalled (6 dreams out of 132 awakenings) whereas if
  participants were awoken within eight minutes of an REM period the proportion rose ( 5 dreams in 17 awakenings)
• When participants were awoken during deep NREM sleep they sometimes were rather bewildered and reported that they must have been dreaming but could not remember the dream. They recalled a
  moods, such as anxiety or pleasantness, but no specific content.
• Most of the instances, when dreams could not be recalled during REM sleep, occurred during the early part of the night (only 9 of the 39 cases of no dreams
  in REM sleep were reported in the last four hours of sleep.)
• Percentage of dream recall after REM stage: 79.6%. Percentage of dream recall after the NREM stage: 7%.
• Waking participants under 8 minutes of completing their REM period resulted in 5/17 dreams being recalled. Waking participants after 8 minutes resulted in 6/132 dreams being recalled.

REM SLEEP
- 192 awakenings
- 152 dream reports (80% could recall a dream)
- 40 no dream reports (20% could not recall a dream)

NREM SLEEP
- 160 awakenings
- 11 dream reports (7% recalled dreams)
- 149 no-dream reports (93% could not recall a dream)

Question 17

what were the results of the test if there is a positive correlation between estimated dream duration and REM period length?

Answer 17

• There was a significant correlation between the minutes of REMs and lengths of dream narratives (number
  of words used)
• Accurate estimation of REM duration: 88% for 5 mins; 78% for 15 minutes.
• A positive correlation between REM duration and the words in the recall was found. 152 dreams narratives were collected, but 26 were omitted, thus, there 126 were left.

5 minutes into REM SLEEP
- 51 reports
- 45 reports were right
- 6 reports were wrong

15 minutes into REM sleep
- 60 reports
- 47 reports were right
- 13 reports were wrong

Question 18

what were the results of the test of whether eye movements relate to the dream content?

Answer 18

• Vertical eye movement (3 dreams) - standing at the bottom of a tall cliff and operating a hoist, etc.
• Horizontal (1 dream) - 2 people throwing tomatoes at each other.
• Vertical and horizontal (10 dreams) - talking to people standing close to them.
• Little or no movement in 21 dreams - watching something in the distance or staring at an object.
  The recall of the dreams showed some relationship to the type of eye movements.

Question 19

what is Electrooculaogram (EOG)?

Answer 19

a method of recording electrical activity in the eyes

Question 20

what are the stages of sleep?

Answer 20

Awake state, NREM stage (Asleep: stages one and two, Asleep: stages three and four) and REM sleep

Question 21

what was the sample of the study?

Answer 21

7 adult males and 2 adult females – 5 of which were intensively studied and 4 of which were used to confirm results; Sampling technique-opportunity

Question 22

describe, in general, the procedure done in this study

Answer 22

• Electrodes were attached around the participant’s eyes to measure activity and hence eye movement and attached to the participant’s scalp to record brain waves.
• The participant then went to sleep in a quiet darkened room
• At various times during the night the participants were awakened by a bell placed by their bed. The awakenings were done either during a REM period or at varying time periods after REM activity had stopped.
• The investigators used different patterns for awakening the five most intensively studied participants to avoid any unintentional pattern. For example, with two participants they used a table of random numbers, one participant was awoken during three REM periods and then three NREM periods, and one was told he would only be awoken during REM sleep but in fact, was awoken randomly during REM and NREM sleep.
• The participants were instructed to speak into a recording machine near their bed (stating whether they had been dreaming), describing if they could the content of the dream, and saying if they had been dreaming, whether they were dreaming for 5 or 15 minutes.
• An investigator was listening outside the room and occasionally entered the room to further question the participant on some particular point of the dream.
• The participants usually fell back to sleep within five minutes.
• The nine subjects were studied over a total of 61 nights, with a total of 351 awakenings which averaged out at 5.7 awakenings per night

Question 23

did the effect of practice affect the results?

Answer 23

Participants did not recall more dreams
as they got more practice

Question 24

how is nature vs nurture seen in this study?

Answer 24

Dream content relates to our experience, so it is a product of nurture. However, the ability to dream is a product of nature.

Question 25

what was concluded from the study?

Answer 25

• A high incidence of dream recall was obtained from participants when woken during REM periods, and only a very low incidence when woken at other times
• When a series of awakenings was conducted either 5 or 15 minutes after the REMs (dreaming) had begun, participants judged the correct dream duration to be fairly accurate
• The pattern of REMs was related to the visual imagery of the dream

Question 26

how is the study of Dement and Kleitman useful?

Answer 26

when Dement & Kleitman carried out this study, they were testing for the first time the idea that the observed physical response of rapid eye movement during sleep was connected to the almost mystical state of dreaming. The physiology of sleep was just beginning to be unraveled and all of a sudden the world of dreams seemed to be coming into the domain of science.

Question 27

how can the study be applied to real-life situations?

Answer 27

Today a vast amount of sleep research is being carried out to help people with sleep disorders or who work shifts. Also, some work done on the disruptive
potential of sleep deprivation and its connection to learning and memory. On the other hand, sleep deprivation is a tactic used on prisoners (in crime, war and political) to make them more cooperative

Question 28

How was validity ensured in the study?

Answer 28

The use of observation as a method adds up to the validity. The use of experimental controls in the procedures has contributed to reducing the effect of
extraneous factors. In order to confirm the meaningfulness of eye movement patterns and dream content, 20 naive participants and 5 of the experimental participants were asked to observe distant and close-up activity while awake. These measurements were in all cases comparable to those occurring during dreaming.
However, use of self-report measures to dream recall and dream contents may
question the validity of the measure.

Question 29

was the study reliable?

Answer 29

Subsequent studies have found that there are large differences between individuals in the reports of dreaming during REM. Also, they were inconsistent with the findings of Dement and Kleitman’s present study that there is a relationship between eye movements and what the person is dreaming about.

Question 30

does the study have a representative sample?

Answer 30

no, the sample size was small and only included 2 females so we could argue
that the results were biased towards the dream pattern of men rather than
women. This may limit the generalizability of the study.

Question 31

describe the quantitative and qualitative data collected in the study

Answer 31

The study collected both quantitative (self-report-dream recall, dream duration estimates) and observation (EEG patterns); qualitative (dream contents). This contributes to the reliability and
validity of the study. It has also shown us that the relationship between dreams and sleep can be studied objectively

Question 32

is the study ecologically valid?

Answer 32

An obvious weakness of the study is its lack of ecological validity. The situation in which the participants had to sleep was unusual and could have affected their sleep patterns. Also the nature of the method of waking participants may have affected their ability to recall their dream.

Question 33

The study by Dement & Kleitman, give two measurements that the researchers made while their subjects were sleeping. [2]

Answer 33

One measurement was EEG recordings of the brain activity and a second was EOG recordings of eye movements.

Question 34

What did their measurements tell them about the pattern of normal sleep. [2]

Answer 34

The EOG measurements suggested some support for a relationship between eye movements and dream content. The EEG recordings showed that normal patterns of sleep do involve distinct stages as measured by different brain activity.

Question 35

Outline one problem with using an electroencephalogram (EEG) to investigate dreaming. [2]

Answer 35

It enables investigators to know what type of sleep a participant is experiencing and when they are more likely to be dreaming but it cannot tell us anything about the dream content and why we dream.

Question 36

If the participants slept in their own bed rather than in a laboratory, what effect might this have on the results? [2]

Answer 36

The frequent awakenings and strange environment may have affected the type of sleep shown by subjects, therefore if left to sleep in their own bed they may have shown patterns reflecting a more typical night sleep.

Question 37

Give two differences between REM and NREM sleep. [2]

Answer 37

In REM sleep you are more likely to dream and the body is immobile. The EEGs during REM sleep are more similar to those patterns recorded while awake, they are fast suggesting an active brain.

In REM sleep dreaming is more likely and in NREM sleep dreaming is less likely. The eyes move rapidly in REM but are still in NREM. In REM the body is inactive but in NREM the body is active. REM EEG is active but NREM is relatively inactive.

Question 38

Briefly describe the dream content for one participant. [2]

Answer 38

Standing at the bottom of the cliff operating hoist and looking at climbers

Question 39

What do Dement and Kleitman conclude about the relationship between eye movements and dream content? [2]

Answer 39

Four main patterns: mainly vertical; mainly horizontal; vertical and horizontal; little or no movement. Dream content does not correspond to eye movement during sleep.

Question 40

Give one problem with self report data in this study. [2]

Answer 40

Not accurate because subjective; Pp may respond to demand characteristics; may give socially desirable responses and may just make up a dream