OCR Core studies
Physiological psychology: Dement and Kleitman (1957)
The relation of eye movements during sleep to dream activity: an objective method for the study of dreams.
INFORMATION: Aim: To do a detailed study of how rapid eye movement (REM) sleep relates to subjective experience of
dreaming. 3 studies testing: (a) if more dreaming occurs in REM than non-REM sleep; (b) if there is a positive correlation between
objective length of REM and subjective duration of dreaming; and (c) if there is a relationship between pattern of eye movements in
REM and dream content.
METHOD: Design: Laboratory experiment and observation. Participants: 9 adults (7 men); 5 studied intensively, 4 to confirm
results. Setting: Quiet, dark laboratory. Apparatus: Recording device and apparatus to make a loud doorbell noise. Electrodes placed
(i) near corners of eyes to measure eye movements (electrooculargram; EOG) and (ii) on scalp to record brain activity
(electroencephalogram: EEG). Procedure: Participants (Ps) avoided caffeine and alcohol for a few days beforehand. Ps individually
went to sleep in laboratory at end of a normal day. EOG and EEG electrodes attached and run continuously through night. The
experimenters woke the Ps at various times using the doorbell noise. Ps immediately reported whether they had been dreaming and
dream content into the recorder. Study 1: Ps woken in one of 4 ways: (i) 2 Ps woken randomly; (ii) 1 woken during 3 REM periods
followed by 3 non-REM periods; (iii) 1 woken at random but told would only be woken during REM sleep; and (iv) 1 woken at whim.
Study 2: Ps woken 5 or 15 minutes after REM began and asked if the dream lasted closer to 5 or 15 minutes. Study 3: Ps woken as
soon as one of 4 patterns of eye movement had occurred for 1 minute, and asked what dream was about. 4 eye movement patterns
were: mainly vertical, mainly horizontal, vertical and horizontal, and very little/no movement.
RESULTS: Study 1: More dreams reported in REM than non-REM sleep, regardless of how Ps woken. Study 2: Length of dream
(number of words in dream report) did correlate to length of REM. Ps correctly matched dream duration to time in REM for 5 (45/51
correct) and 15 (47/60 correct) minute periods. Study 3: A very strong association between eye movement pattern and dream content
(e.g., vertical eye movements associated with dream of ladders).
CONCLUSION: Dreams are related to REM sleep, people do dream in real-time, and eye movements are closely related to dream
content.
Experimental method
&design
Experimental sampling
Apparatus/materials
Controls
Qualitative/quantitative
measures
Ecological validity
Confounding variables
Usefulness of research
Observation studies
Self report measures
Generalisations
Laboratory experiment using objective and subjective measures.
A limited sample (mostly men). The sample may be too small to be representative.
Electrooculargraph and electroencephalograph machines. Recording device.
Apparatus to make loud doorbell noise.
Experiment done in controlled laboratory conditions. Many controls used, such as:
Participants were woken by doorbell noise so that they had no contact with the
experimenters. All participants were woken in the same way.
Participants reported their dreams into the recording device; this was done before
they had any contact with an experimenter.
Participants were never told if their eyes had been moving before being woken. The
experimenter only asked participants about their dream content once they had stated
that they were dreaming (so that this was not leading).
The interfering effects of alcohol and caffeine with REM sleep were controlled for
by participants not ingesting these substances before testing.
Qualitative measure: self-reports. Quantitative measures: EEGs, EOGs, estimation of
dream length, observation of eye movements.
A lack of ecological validity as the participants had to sleep in a laboratory and have
electrodes on them, both of which are unusual.
Sleeping in a laboratory and being attached to electrodes could affect their sleep
patterns. The waking method could also have affected their dreaming/sleep patterns,
as could being woken several times in one night.
This research shows that dreams can be studied in objective way.
Observation was used in this research to detect eye movements.
Participants gave self-reports of whether they had been dreaming and what they had
been dreaming about.
As there was a limited sample, mostly using men, the findings may lack
generalisability.