Siffre study ( 1975) six Months Alone in a cave - Sleep and dreaming Flashcards
Background of the study
In 1962, Michel Siffre spent 63 days in a cave in France to see how this body clock reacted being without normal time cues. He was interested in space travel and thought that astronauts might experience situations that could be replicated in a deep cave.
What was his aim?
To investigate what would happen to our natural sleep-wake cycle if we had no external cues from the environment such as daylight telling us what time it was. Siffre spent long periods of time living underground to study his own biological rhythms.
What was his procedure?
- Siffre was a cave expert who investigated the natural duration of his own sleep-wake cycle.
- He spent 6 months in a cave with only one weak artificial light starting on 14 February 1972.
- There was no natural light in the cave so he didn’t know what time it was + he didn’t have any external cues to guide his rhythms- no daylight, no clock, no radio.
- His only contact with researchers was by telephone.
- His physiological functions were measured and his behaviour was observed throughout.
- Siffre had no clock or reference to time and had to rely on Internal clock. He would telephone his researchers when he woke up to tell them when his day begun.
- He simply woke up, slept and ate whenever he felt like it.
- The only influence on his behaviour was his internal clock.
- His home in the cave was a large chamber in which there were a bed table and chair.
- He took frozen food and 780 gallons of water with him underground.
What are the different experiments he carried out?
1) Taking blood pressure.
2) Taking different memory and physical tests as such riding his exercise bike to monitor his progress.
What were Siffre results?
- Siffre found his sleep-wake cycle to be around 25 hours, sometimes it is up to 48 hours.
- He organized his day into a pattern of alternating periods of sleep and activity. His sleep-wake cycle shifted to 25 hour days.
What was Siffre’s conclusion?
- Siffre concluded that without natural daylight, this allowed his biological clock to run at its natural rate, therefore without time cues, such as natural light, the body clock was erratic.
What were Siffre strengths?
- Siffre’s experiment is important as he controlled key variables ( extraneous variables) to see their effects on the sleep-wake cycle.
- Siffre was underground for a very long time and was able to get a lot of very detailed information which produced a very detailed record for his time. This means researchers were able to find out how the absence of light can change out sleep-wake cycle.
What were Siffre weaknesses?
- Some argue this is not an experiment but rather a case study as it is the study of one individual.
- Some say his research is fake since Siffre used artificial light in his experiment. For example, he switched on lights, which would have re-set the body clock.
- His body behaviour may not be the same as other peoples ( we cannot make generalisation from a single person), and also, living in a cave would have meant it was very cold.
