Partial or Total Seep Deprivation

Sleep deprivation or lack of sleep is one of the most common issue that affects an individual’s everyday life in modern days. Shneerson states that the need for sleep varies among individual and an average of 8 hours of sleep is required each day. [As quoted in 1] Based on the meta-analysis written by Pilcher and Huffcutt, sleep deprivation can be categorized into three types, which are the short-term, long term and partial sleep deprivation. [2] Whether it is a total or partial sleep deprivation, it is agreed by all that sleep deprivation can affect the cognitive performance, mood and categorizing performance of an individual.

First, sleep deprivation can impair the cognitive performance of an individual. The lack of sleep can decrease attention, working memory and impair vigilance. [1] Studies by Smith et al. have shown a decline in both speed of reaction and in accuracy of performance. [As quoted in 1] Besides that, Drummond stated that getting not enough sleep for 35 hours can impair free recall. However, recognition is not affected. [As quoted in 1] Drummond and Thomas et al. reported that this is due to the disturbance of function of parts in front of the brain. [As quoted in 1] Furthermore, Wright and Baldia also claimed that probed forced memory recall performance is impaired, whereas McCharthy and Waters stated that memory search is also affected by sleep deprivation. In fact, the less sleep obtained, the more cognitive performance impaired. [1] This was agreed by Pilcher and Huffcutt as they wrote that incomplete sleep deprivation decrements the mental task more than short-term or long-term sleep deprivation. [2]

Sleep deprivation also affects the mood of an individual. The findings by Pilcher and Huffcutt stated that the lack of sleep affects mood the most, followed by mental and motor performance. [2] Similar findings also state that partial sleep deprivation affects the mood more than prolonged sleep deprivation. Bonnet MH found out that a significant drop in performance and mood is due to the similarities in partial sleep deprivation and fragmented sleep pattern. [As quoted in 2] On average, the subjects with less sleep reported that their mood was much worse than those of have enough sleep. [2] However, the impact on mood due to different category of sleep deprivation is still undergoing research. [2]

There are two types of categorization, the rule-based categorization, and the information-integration categorization. [3] Not getting enough sleep affects the rule-based categorization performance.