Effects of partial sleep deprivation on within-format and cross-format priming

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of sleep on long-term priming. We report the results of a preliminary experiment that enabled us to verify that priming can last for 4 hours, and we also report the results of a study of partial sleep-deprivation.

Subjects performed 2 tasks: within-format and cross-format priming.

Sleep laboratory.

Ninety-eight healthy young subjects participated in the 2 studies reported here: 48 in the preliminary experiment and 50 in the sleep-deprivation study.

Testing after a 4-hour diurnal retention interval (Experiment 1) or after an equivalent interval filled with early or late sleep, or corresponding periods of wakefulness (Experiment 2).

A tachistoscopic identification paradigm, consisting of naming aloud briefly flashed drawings, was used to assess 2 priming conditions: a same-format or within-format condition (in which items were drawings in the study and test phases) and a different- or cross-format condition (in which the symbolic format of the items differed between the 2 phases: words/drawings). In Experiment 1, we revealed significant priming effects in both conditions after a 4-hour interval. In Experiment 2, only same-format priming effects were observed, but their magnitude was smaller than in Experiment 1. There was no significant difference in priming scores between the sleep and wake groups.

Sleep does not appear to have a strong effect on priming. Instead, priming appears to be affected by circadian influences.