Theories of How Sleep Loss Affects Cognitive Functions

Theories of How Sleep Loss Affects Cognitive Functions 

For approximately two decades, the lapse hypothesis was the dominant theoretical explanation for the effects of sleep loss on cognitive performance. In their seminal monograph, Williams, Lubin, and Goodnow (43) reported that performance lapses on experimenter-paced RT tasks increased with increasing hours of wakefulness, and that while poorest performance worsened, subjects were still able to perform at almost optimum levels between lapse periods. Thus, the longer subjects remained awake, the more variable their performance became. Importantly, this was observed regardless of the type (simple vs. choice) or duration (10 vs. 30 min) of RT task, and whether or not subjects were provided with performance feedback. 

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V. Theories of How Sleep Loss Affects Cognitive Functions... 

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