AICE Psychology Midterm Study(DK)

1) Outline two dreams reported by participants in the study by Dement and Kleitman (sleep and dreams)

One dream reported by participants involved throwing tomatoes at people, which reflected horizontal eye movements during REM sleep. Another dream involved throwing a basketball at a hoop, which reflected vertical eye movements. These examples showed a clear link between eye movement direction and dream content.

2) Explain two differences between the study by Dement and Kleitman (sleep and dreams) and one other study from the biological approach. One of the differences must be about the sample of participants.

One difference is the sample, as Dement and Kleitman used a small sample of nine adults, whereas another biological study such as Hassett et al. used non-human animals (monkeys), making their samples fundamentally different. A second difference is the method, since Dement and Kleitman used EEG recordings to measure brain activity during sleep, while Hassett et al. measured observable behavior, specifically toy play duration.

3) Outline one result in relation to REM sleep and dream recall.

Participants were much more likely to recall dreams when woken during REM sleep than when woken during NREM sleep.

4) Outline one result in relation to dream duration estimates when participants were woken up

15 minutes after the onset of REM sleep.

When participants were woken 15 minutes after the onset of REM sleep, their estimates of dream duration were highly accurate, with an average accuracy of around 88-92% compared to the actual length of REM sleep.

5) Explain one weakness of the study

One weakness is the low ecological validity, because participants slept in a laboratory while connected to electrodes, which may have affected how naturally they slept and dreamed. This means the results may not fully reflect normal sleep patterns at home.

6A) Identify the type of data provided by counting the words in the narratives. Justify your answer.

Counting the number of words in dream narratives produces quantitative data, because the data is numerical and can be statistically analyzed.

6B) Explain one strength of collecting this type of data in this study

A strength of quantitative data is that it is objective, as word counts reduce researcher bias and allow for easier comparison between participants.