Laterality, sleep and carry-over performance effects.
Item
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Title
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Laterality, sleep and carry-over performance effects.
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Identifier
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AAI8914781
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identifier
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8914781
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Creator
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Reinsel, Ruth Anne.
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Contributor
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Adviser: John Antrobus
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Date
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1988
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Physiological | Psychology, Experimental
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Abstract
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To test the hypothesis that RH functions are selectively facilitated during and after REM sleep, EEG measures of cerebral dominance recorded during sleep were correlated with standardized scores on a battery of cognitive and psychomotor tasks administered immediately after awakening. 33 right-handed normal volunteers spent two nights in the sleep laboratory, and were awakened twice per night (either early or late in the sleep period) from REM or Stage 2 sleep. Performance on nocturnal awakenings was compared to a waking control session. Tasks were administered in counterbalanced order across awakenings, and included measures of verbal, spatial and tactile processing, memory, and choice reaction time. EEG spectral power in six band-widths (0.52-32 Hz) was computed from bilateral central and temporo-parietal electrodes.;No significant main effects or interactions were found for stage of sleep or time of night on any of the tasks. Performance on nocturnal awakenings did not differ significantly from waking control values. Gender effects were not present in either the behavioral measures or in EEG power. Subjects showed an overall bias towards LH dominance in Waking and in both sleep stages. Hemisphere differences were small in magnitude and did not related to sleep stage or time of night, although frequency bands summed across both hemisphere significantly discriminated between Waking, REM and Stage 2 sleep. Correlations of total EEG power in sleep with later task performance were for the most part not significant.;It is concluded that there is no basis for assuming RH dominance in REM sleep. Previous reports of stage-specific lateralized carry-over performance effects were not replicated. Given that the current experiment has a larger sample size and consequently greater statistical power than previous studies in this area, the null findings can be accepted as a disconfirmation of the twin hypothesis of RH dominance in REM and stage-specific carry-over of cognitive asymmetry, without undue risk of Type II error. Nevertheless methodological differences between the present research and prior investigations may help to explain the divergent results.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
