Case
Circadian Rhythm Q&A
This is a full mark A* question and answer leaflet for Biopsychology - circadian rhythms.
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1) How might extraneous variables have been controlled if the study had been conducted in alaboratory, rather than a cave as suggested?
It would have been possible to regulate temperature and noise
2) Siffre acknowledges he experienced perfect sleep. The psychological testing in these early
studies was rather rudimentary and focused on passage of time, etc. What other testing would
have been valuable to do? In each case, justify your suggestion.
It can be useful to compare cognitive functioning (e.g. concentration) after a ‘typical’ and a ‘perfect’
sleep. Similarly, mood could have been compared to further investigate the impact of a ‘good night’s
sleep’.
3) The French Army pursued the idea of a 48-hour schedule, including drug trials, but it was never
fully implemented. Why might this have been?
There would be a social impact of some people being on a 48-hour schedule. The long-term impact,
for example on health, could not be quantified. Siffre notes that people who volunteered for his early
experiments did so for speleological (cave studying) reasons rather than psychological ones –
perhaps it was difficult to persuade people to adopt a 48-hour schedule without the lure of a cave!
4) Whilst case studies are often criticised as being weak evidence because they do not account for
individual differences, Siffre’s study and its findings have been replicated on a number of
individuals. Does this make it likely that the results are generalisable?
More likely but this would have been a volunteer sample and biased to some extent in that certain
types of people would be more likely to volunteer than others, e.g. those without regular jobs and
families. For example, students might volunteer during their long summer holidays or retired people
with fewer social ties – in each of these cases, the nature of their existing sleep patterns may not
reflect the ‘average’ adult.
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