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Mar. 14th, 2003 02:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grindmonkehSeveral years ago while taking a psychology course, I read an article about an ages-old study and an associated experiment... Small conveyor belts of about a foot in length were walled with glass on three sides, and mice were then placed on them to mill at a slow pace. If the mice walked against the tread they would either stay in the same place or come to face the wall at the origin of the tread. If they stopped moving then the tread would eventually drop them into a pool of water with depths conducive to drowning. The only escape out of the pool of water was to climb back onto the treadmill and continue walking.
Soon the mice grew tired, and eventually fell asleep on the relentlessly moving belts. They would be awakened upon dropping into the water, and would climb back out onto the belt to walk rather than drown. After time, the mice learned that they could run all the way to the beginning of the belt, stop, and catch a few seconds of sleep as it carried them toward the water. They began to consistently wake themselves at the point before they would be dropped into the water, and repeat the process over again.
This experiment was to study the effects of microsleep on health and performance. Microsleeps are often the cause of short term memory deficits, increased reaction times, and generally poorer task performance associated with sleep deprivation, since presented stimuli may not actually be registered by the subject during a microsleep. The same mechanism can also explain some longer term effects on memory. These effects weren't found through the mice. They simply died.
My week thus far has consisted of 65 working hours in five days. I feel like a drowning mouse.
"The sleep comes in without detection.
The dream shows proof of sleep's intrusion."
Soon the mice grew tired, and eventually fell asleep on the relentlessly moving belts. They would be awakened upon dropping into the water, and would climb back out onto the belt to walk rather than drown. After time, the mice learned that they could run all the way to the beginning of the belt, stop, and catch a few seconds of sleep as it carried them toward the water. They began to consistently wake themselves at the point before they would be dropped into the water, and repeat the process over again.
This experiment was to study the effects of microsleep on health and performance. Microsleeps are often the cause of short term memory deficits, increased reaction times, and generally poorer task performance associated with sleep deprivation, since presented stimuli may not actually be registered by the subject during a microsleep. The same mechanism can also explain some longer term effects on memory. These effects weren't found through the mice. They simply died.
My week thus far has consisted of 65 working hours in five days. I feel like a drowning mouse.
"The sleep comes in without detection.
The dream shows proof of sleep's intrusion."