Effects of sleep deprivation on working memory

    SONG Guoª²Ping, MIAO Danª²Min, Huangfu En

    1Department of Cognitive Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China, 2Chinese PLA 467 Hospital, Shijiazhuang 050800, China, 3Department of Psychology, School of Aerospace Medicine, Fourth Military Medical University, Xi¬ðan 710033, China

    ¡¾Abstract¡¿ AIM: To study the effects of sleep deprivation (SD) for different time periods on working memory. METHODS: Thirtyª²two young males were randomly divided into 4 groups, control, SD21 h, SD45 h and SD69 h. The subjects were tested after sleep deprivation by memory span test, digit subtraction test, and random number generation test. RESULTS: After SD, the score of memory span lowered, which was significant at SD69 h. The score of backward number memory span was significantly lowered at SD45 h. After SD, the score of total number of digit subtraction test was significantly lowered at SD69 h while correct number/total number was significantly lowered at SD45 h. The random number generation test was more sensitive than others. Total Number and Random Number Generation were significantly lowered at SD21 h while Redundancy and Adjacent were significantly lowered at SD45 h. CONCLUSION: Working memory is lowered after SD and tasks needing more working memory are more significantly affected. Such effect is more evident after SD45 h. ......