Effects of sleep reduction on the phonological and visuospatial components of working memory.
Sleep reduction impairs the performance of many tasks, so it may affect a basic cognitive process, such as working memory, crucial for the execution of a broad range of activities. Working memory has two storage components: a phonological and a visuospatial component. The objective of this study was to analyze the effects of sleep reduction for 5 days on the storage components of working memory. Thirteen undergraduate students (18.77±2.20 years of age), 5 men and 8 women, responded two N-Back tasks (auditory and visual), with three sections each (0-Back, 1-Back, and 2-Back). These tasks were performed at 13:00 h under the following conditions: before sleep reduction (control; C); on the first (SR1), fourth (SR4), and fifth (SR5) days of sleep reduction (4 h of sleep per night); and one day after they slept freely (recovery, R). Sleep reduction produced a decrement in accuracy on the auditory 2-Back section the fifth day of sleep reduction (C=87.86±13.35%; SR5=74.76±16.37%; F=14.57, p<0.01). In the visual 2-Back section accuracy decreased (C=88.10±9.95%; SR1=82.45±11.57%; SR5=77.76±14.14%; F=10.80, p<0.05), and reaction time increased (C=810.02±173.96 ms; SR1=913.51±172.25 ms; SR5=874.78±172.27 ms; F=10.80, p<0.05) on the first and fifth day of sleep reduction. In conclusion, five days of sleep reduction produces a decrease in the phonological and visuospatial storage components of working memory, which may interfere with processing verbal information and solving problems that require spatial analysis.
Laboratory of Psychophysiology, School of Psychology, Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, Monterrey, NL, Mexico.
Jacqueline
J
Del Angel
Laboratory of Psychophysiology, School of Psychology, Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, Monterrey, NL, Mexico.
Juventino
J
Cortez
Laboratory of Psychophysiology, School of Psychology, Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, Monterrey, NL, Mexico.
Diana
D
Juárez
Laboratory of Psychophysiology, School of Psychology, Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, Monterrey, NL, Mexico.
Martha
M
Guerrero
Laboratory of Psychophysiology, School of Psychology, Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, Monterrey, NL, Mexico.
Aída
A
García
Laboratory of Psychophysiology, School of Psychology, Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, Monterrey, NL, Mexico.
Candelaria
C
Ramírez
Laboratory of Psychophysiology, School of Psychology, Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, Monterrey, NL, Mexico.
Pablo
P
Valdez
Phonological storage; Sleep reduction; Visuospatial storage; Working memory