Abstract
The effects of sleep deprivation on problem-solving performance was tested. It was hypothesized that sleep deprivation could affect this kind of performance by lowering S's standard of performance, provided that the task was such that S found failures acceptable. S would then spend less time on task and leave more items unsolved. In two experiments one group informed that there were insoluble items was compared with a group who did not get this information. The results from Exp. 1 indicated a lowered standard of performance in both groups after sleep deprivation. This was interpreted as a result of the extreme difficulty of the task which, in itself, might make failures acceptable. In the second experiment the task was made easier and only the group who knew about the insoluble items spent less time on the task after deprivation.
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