The effects of sleep loss on short-term recognition memory.

Compared the performance of 20 sleep-deprived undergraduates on a probe-recognition memory task with that of 20 nondeprived controls over periods up to 55 hrs. Recognition was either immediate or delayed by 20 sec. Results show that the sleep-deprived group made significantly more errors in the perception of the material, and under the delay condition retained less adequately those items correctly perceived. It is argued that these findings are consistent with the notion that sleep loss causes a deficit in attention, leading to misperception and a failure to rehearse adequately material presented for memorization. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)