Running head: THE EFFECTS OF SLEEP DEPRIVATION ON MEMORY

The Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Memory

Maya Fraser-Philbin

December 6, 2015

Dr. Nelson

Gonzaga University
 THE EFFECTS OF SLEEP DEPRIVATION ON MEMORY 2

Generally speaking, sleep deprivation is a widespread problem in not just adults, but

adolescents as well. In my hometown of Seattle, student’s sleep has been a hot topic. Seattle

Public Schools is considering pushing back middle school and high school start times to 8:50am,

from the current 8:00am start. Many parents and teachers think that a later start time would have

many academic and health benefits. Jiang (2011), noted that although adolescents often have

chronic sleep deprivation, they seem to have become accustomed to constant sleep restriction.

As a busy student, it is easy to not get enough sleep. My high school psychology teacher,

a practicing clinical psychologist, said that approximately 80% or more of the students at my all-

girls high school are always sleep deprived. With extra and co-curricular activities, it is easy to

not get the recommended amount of sleep every night. Looking back at my high school career, I

usually slept about 6-7 hours, while the recommended amount is usually around 8-10 hours.

Throughout college, I have been sleeping between 7-8 hours every night. Regarding my sleeping

habits, I feel like I can still function, but maybe not to my best ability, with at least 6 hours of

sleep. Despite learning and knowing the importance of sleep, I continue to struggle sleeping the

recommended amount. With the possibility (or fact) of being sleep deprived for the past 6 to 7

years of my life, I want to look more in-depth to the effects of sleep deprivation on memory.

First off, what is sleep deprivation? Sleep deprivation occurs when one simply does not

get enough sleep. Stemming from this broad definition, there are different types of sleep

deprivation categorized by the amount of sleep deprived. There is total sleep deprivation, which

is avoiding sleep for a minimum of one night. Next, there is partial sleep deprivation, also known

as sleep restriction. This is when an individual reduces their total sleep time in relation to their

standard 24-hour day. Next, there is acute sleep deprivation, which consists of one to a few

nights with a shortened sleep or without sleep. Chronic sleep deprivation consists of long periods
 THE EFFECTS OF SLEEP DEPRIVATION ON MEMORY 3

of time, ranging from weeks to years, with either shortened or without sleep. It is also important

to note the difference between sleep deprivation and insomnia. Individuals with insomnia have

difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep, even though they want to sleep and have the

opportunity to do so (Harvey & Tang, 2012). Sleep deprivation on the other hand, is induced by

the individual or by external causes.

What causes sleep deprivation? As mentioned in the previous paragraph, it depends. An

individual may decide to stay up late, wake up early, or otherwise disrupt their baseline sleeping

habits. External causes such as work, school, and other late night activities could also induce

sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation differs across the board often due to inter-individual

differences, such biological traits, changing sleeping structures, age, and gender (Alhola & Polo-

Kantola, 2007).

Short-term (ST) memory is important for rehearsing and transferring sensory information

from our environment into our long-term (LT) memory. The acquisition and encoding of

information is crucial for learning and retrieving information from both ST and LT memory. One

study measured lapses, uncontrollable and sporadic periods of lowered reactive capacity, after

sleep loss. They found that the amount of lapses increased after losing sleep, which led to

decrements in memory at every retention interval that was tested (Polzella, 1975). These lapses

effected the encoding of during ST memory, which led to forgetting due to encoding failure to

one’s LT memory (Polzella, 1975).

Working memory is one of the most tested cognitive processes when studying sleep

deprivation. Working memory is important for temporarily retaining and/or manipulating

information so it can be transferred into LT memory. It has been shown in various studies that

working memory is affected after being sleep deprived. Lim & Dinges (2010) noted that working
 THE EFFECTS OF SLEEP DEPRIVATION ON MEMORY 4

memory tests were strongly affected by one night of sleep deprivation. It is also likely that some

processes of working memory may be more susceptible to being affected by sleep deprivation

than others (Drummond, Anderson, Straus, Vogel & Perez, 2012). It was found that total and

partial sleep deprivation did not decreased visual working memory capacity. Instead, total sleep

deprivation lowered filtering efficiency at every level of difficulty after one night, while partial

sleep deprivation for four nights did not have this effect. This suggests that total sleep

deprivation hinders our ability to ignore irrelevant stimuli, which allows for greater distractions

in our visual environment (Drummond, Anderson, Straus, Vogel & Perez, 2012).

As a precursor to Drummond, Anderson, Straus, Vogel & Perez’s (2012) study, it was

found that after 42 hours of total sleep deprivation affects different aspects of working memory

unequally (Turner, Drummund, Salamat & Brown, 2007). Their largest finding was that after 42

hours of total sleep deprivation, working memory span decreased by 38%. In an experiment that

restricted the sleep of healthy adults to less than 7 hours of sleep per night, working memory was

reduced. Working memory also worsened after severe acute total sleep deprivation (Banks &

Dinges, 2007).

One study I found particularly interesting looked to examine the effects of chronic sleep

restriction in adolescents (ages 13-16) and young adults (ages 18-20). To evaluate these effects,

Jiang (2011) used a subjective sleepiness scale as well as working memory tasks. This study used

a home-based sleep restriction procedure, rather than an in-laboratory study, which is not only

cheaper, but also better accepted by the subjects and their families. This study stood out to me

from some of the other adolescent studies because 85% of their adolescent participants and 100%

of their young adult participants were compliant with a short sleep schedule, which was a lot

more frequent than previous studies. One of the most interesting findings was that sleeping for
 THE EFFECTS OF SLEEP DEPRIVATION ON MEMORY 5

shorter periods of time significantly increase sleep efficiency, while shortening sleep latency.

This leads me to wonder if this has happened to me as I regularly slept 6-7 hours in high school.

Looking back, I feel like I started napping in high school. This could have offset some of my

sleep debt, but I am sure there are many hours of sleep I will never be able to pay off.

Returning to the study: After 5 days, the daytime sleepiness of young adults increased

after acute sleep restriction. Adolescents on the other hand did not show significant difference

until night 4 of the restricted sleep. Even though the average total sleep time was similar during

the control conditions, adolescents had higher sleepiness scores than young adults. The higher

scores suggest that adolescents were previously sleep restricted when establishing their baseline

for sleeping. The only significant increases in reaction time in this study occurred in working

memory tasks for the adolescent group tested on simple verbal and arithmetic working memory

tasks, which did not affect the group’s overall task accuracy. Lastly, this study concluded that

adolescents have a unique vulnerability because they seem to have the ability to be in between

acute and chronic sleep restriction, which is established as the inability to perceive changes of

their sleepiness in a timely manner. This leads to cognitive performances being negatively

impacted by preconceived “non-sleepy” conditions, when in fact, they were sleepy (Jiang, 2011).

I think that these findings are very intriguing because it shows that age may be a factor in

how sleep deprivation effects our memory. Even as a young adult, we become increasingly

sleepy compared to adolescents as sleep deprivation becomes prolonged (Jiang, 2011). This

study clearly showed that adolescents are probably more sleep deprived than they believe to be. I

find it extremely fascinating that adolescents can adapt to sleep restriction, but this was probably

true about high school self. Maybe this is another reason why students feel so tired by the time

Friday rolls around. I also think that it was interesting that adolescents were not as good at
 THE EFFECTS OF SLEEP DEPRIVATION ON MEMORY 6

determining their actual sleepiness, but it makes sense that the young adults were better at

identifying their sleepiness. I remember reading somewhere that adolescents have a harder time

identifying other people’s emotions. Maybe these misidentifications are related to the

development of one’s hippocampus. Although it was not explicitly mentioned in this particular

study, this could potentially be evidence for the human need for sleep. Although experimenters

cannot induce sleeping restriction for extended periods of time on humans, I think it would be

interesting to read case study or an observational experiment with participants (or patients) that

have been diagnosed with chronic sleep restriction and how it affects memory.

Despite these findings on working memory, Lo et al., (2012) found that sleep loss has a

greater effect on sustained attention rather than working memory tasks with a high load. This

may be due to our circadian rhythm adapting to the effects of our sleeping patterns. This in turn

may explain differences in performance during the evening versus the morning, which is when

brain function is a lot more vulnerable (Lo et al., 2012). This could be another explanation as to

why or how adolescents adapt to sleep restriction.

Following working memory, long-term (LT) memory consists of declarative and implicit

memory. LT memory is crucial for the encoding, storage, and retrieval of memory. At this time,

various have studies focuses on LT memory, but often have inconsistent results (Alhola & Polo-

Kantola, 2007).

One study found that behavioral performance at retrieval appears to be more dependent

on the strategy of encoding than the effect of sleep deprivation on memories that were

recollected accurately or falsely. The item recollection of sleep deprived participants has shown

to be inferior to participants that were not sleep deprived when recollection was based on

specific contextual details, rather than familiarity (Darsuad et al., 2011). This shows how sleep is
 THE EFFECTS OF SLEEP DEPRIVATION ON MEMORY 7

important with episodic memories that are context-heavy. Darsud et al. (2011) later concluded

that sleep is beneficial for the promotion of accurate and illusory recollections. Although sleep

may not be a large factor in the occurrence of false memories, patterns with encoding may be

able to predict the creation of accurate recollections, rather than deceptive ones, when the

hippocampus is involved (Darsuad et al., 2011).

Confirming these findings, Atienza & Cantero (2008) stated that emotion and sleep are

important, but did not find significance between emotions and sleep when consolidating memory

in both the sleep deprived and non-sleep deprived groups. Their findings concluded that

emotional memory consolidation was not affected as much as neutral memory consolidation

when sleep deprivation was present. Again similar to Darsud et al.’s (2011) conclusions, sleep

deprivation disrupts recollection more than familiarity. Although emotion has a memory-

enhancing effect, sleep deprivation seemed to only weaken it. Atienza & Cantero (2008) also

hypothesized that hippocampal reactivation during sleep may be important for recognizing

emotional information based on recollection and not familiarity. In addition to Atienza &

Cantero’s (2008) previously mentioned study, it was noted that sleep recovery did not undo the

adverse effects of sleep loss when retrieving emotional and non-emotional contextual

information. This shows that the first night of sleep may be vital for consolidation of episodic

memory, regardless of emotion.

From the studying concerning emotion and memory, I think that it was Atienxa &

Cantero’s finding to be the most useful. The difference between an adequate amount of sleep and

one night of sleep deprivation definitely make a noticeable difference in memory. It was

interesting to learn that even though emotional helps us better recall memories, sleep deprivation

has the power to diminish memories.

 THE EFFECTS OF SLEEP DEPRIVATION ON MEMORY 8

In another study, it was found that sleep deprivation at retrieval, rather than sleeping after

learning, significantly enhances the rate of false memories. In one of the experiments conducted

in Diekelmann, Landolt, Lahl, Born & Wagner’s (2008) study, it found that this negative effect

could be counteracted to some degree by consuming caffeine before retrieval, blocking

adenosine, which may be related to regulating sleep. In response to the argument that sleep

deprived participants would have higher false memory rates due to lower levels of motivation or

compliance, sleep deprived participants’ confidence ratings and judgments of guessing were not

different from participants that were not sleep deprived (Diekelmann, Landolt, Lahl, Born &

Wagner, 2008). This study concluded sleep deprivation leads to greater false memories and the

observed differences from those who slept after learning mostly stem from changes that occur in

the brain when sleep deprived. Using caffeine to block adenosine receptors, in order to diminish

the enhancement of false memory at retrieval, also further supports their conclusion. Lastly, they

also noted that acute sleep deprivation increases false memories, as opposed to sleep after

learning, which did not impact the formation of false memories (Diekelmann, Landolt, Lahl,

Born & Wagner, 2008).

An additional study that included a nap opportunity, sleep deprivation did not prevent the

encoding of a non-declarative task. Being sleep deprived at encoding may have been balanced

out by sleeping better during consolidation. Memory encoding for declarative tasks may be

affected more by sleep deprivation than non-declarative tasks. By napping, it was possible for the

sleep-deprived participants to have less wakefulness, which may have led to better consolidation.

Successful memory consolidation may rely on the type of task and the brain regions associated

with processing the particular task during sleep deprivation. (McWhirter et al., 2015)
 THE EFFECTS OF SLEEP DEPRIVATION ON MEMORY 9

It has been noted that REM sleep is crucial for memory consolidation. Regarding

declarative memory, its process appears to be unaffected by REM sleep deprivation. Deprivation

of procedural memory affects consolidation when there is REM sleep deprivation (Saxvig et al.,

2008). REM Sleep deprivation did not affect memory performance or in the acquisition of

emotional memory. Compared to the control group, the REM-deprived group showed more acute

effects the first night. Overall, Saxvig et al., (2008) found no overall effect on memory’s function

or processes after REM sleep deprivation

Overall, it appears that different aspects of memory are affected by the amount of sleep

deprived, whether acute or chronic, and by the task load. Although motivation has not been

studied as much as working memory, it may also play a role in performance after sleep

deprivation (Jiang, 2011). Individual genetic differences also contribute to variances between

subjects and responses in all studies. As sleep deprivation becomes chronic, adverse health

effects increase. Encoding information, essential for learning information, becomes increasingly

slower and less efficient as sleep deprivation continues. Although sleep deprivation may affect

different components of working memory differently, working memory continues to get worse as

sleep deprivation continues. Sleep deprivation also affects our long-term memory by disrupting

our recollection and by weakening effects of memory-enhancement. It is very clear that having

an adequate night of sleep is beneficial to normal cognitive and physiological functioning. In

conclusion, sleep deprivation may be increasingly detrimental to different aspects memory,

depending on the amount of sleep deprivation that has transpired as well as many other internal

and external factors. In the short term, some sleep restriction may not completely hinder one’s

memory, but total and partial chronic sleep deprivation may exhaust many aspects of it. As a

result, memories become inaccurate, less efficient, and at a lower capacity.

 THE EFFECTS OF SLEEP DEPRIVATION ON MEMORY 10

References

Alhola, P., & Polo-Kantola, P. (2007). Sleep deprivation: Impact on cognitive performance.

Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment, 3(5), 553–567.

Atienza, M., & Cantero, J. L. (2008). Modulatory effects of emotion and sleep on recollection

and familiarity. Journal Of Sleep Research, 17(3), 285-294. doi:10.1111/j.1365-

2869.2008.00661.x

Banks, S., & Dinges, D. F. (2007). Behavioral and Physiological Consequences of Sleep

Restriction. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine : JCSM : Official Publication of the

American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 3(5), 519–528.

Darsuad, A., Dehon, H., Lahl, O., Sterpenich, V., Boly, M., … Collette, F. (2011) Does Sleep

Promote False Memories?. (2011). Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 23(1), 26-40.

Diekelmann, S., Landolt, H., Lahl, O., Born, J., & Wagner, U. (2008). Sleep Loss Produces False

Memories. Plos ONE, 3(10), 1-9. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0003512

Drummond, S. A., Anderson, D. E., Straus, L. D., Vogel, E. K., & Perez, V. B. (2012). The

Effects of Two Types of Sleep Deprivation on Visual Working Memory Capacity and

Filtering Efficiency. Plos ONE, 7(4), 1-8. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0035653

Harvey, A. G., & Tang, N. Y. (2012). (Mis)perception of sleep in insomnia: A puzzle and a

resolution. Psychological Bulletin, 138(1), 77-101. doi:10.1037/a0025730

Jiang, F. X. (2011). Effect of chronic sleep restriction on sleepiness and working memory in

adolescents and young adults. Journal Of Clinical & Experimental Neuropsychology,

33(8), 892-900.

Lim, J., & Dinges, D. (2010). A meta-analysis of the impact of short-term sleep deprivation on

cognitive variables. Psychological Bulletin, 136(3), 375-389.

 THE EFFECTS OF SLEEP DEPRIVATION ON MEMORY 11

Lo, J. C., Groeger, J. A., Santhi, N., Arbon, E. L., Lazar, A. S., Hasan, S., … Dijk, D.-J. (2012).

Effects of Partial and Acute Total Sleep Deprivation on Performance across Cognitive

Domains, Individuals and Circadian Phase. PLoS ONE, 7(9), e45987.

http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0045987

McWhirter, K. K., Morrow, A. S., Lee, B. A., Bishu, S., Zametkin, A. J., Balkin, T. J., & ...

Picchioni, D. (2015). A PILOT STUDY ON THE ENCODING OF A PERCEPTUAL

LEARNING TASK FOLLOWING SLEEP DEPRIVATION. Perceptual & Motor Skills,

121(1), 80-93.

Polzella, D. J. (1975). Effects of sleep deprivation on short-term recognition memory. Journal Of

Experimental Psychology: Human Learning And Memory, 1(2), 194-200.

doi:10.1037/0278-7393.1.2.194

Saxvig, I. W., Lundervold, A. J., Grønli, J., Ursin, R., Bjorvatn, B., & Portas, C. M. (2008). The

effect of a REM sleep deprivation procedure on different aspects of memory function in

humans. Psychophysiology, 45(2), 309-317.

Turner, T. H., Drummond, S. A., Salamat, J. S., & Brown, G. G. (2007). Effects of 42 hr of total

sleep deprivation on component processes of verbal working memory. Neuropsychology,

21(6), 787-795. doi:10.1037/0894-4105.21.6.787