A university professor researching sleep disorders occasionally taught class after spending whole nights working in a laboratory. She found lecturing after such nights difficult: she reported that she felt worn out and humorless, and she had difficulty concentrating and finding the appropriate words. After several weeks of lectures, she asked her students to guess which lectures had been given after nights without sleep. Interestingly, very few students were able to correctly identify them.
Summary
A university professor studying sleep disorders sometimes taught after staying up all night in the lab. She found these lectures difficult, feeling tired, humorless, and unable to concentrate or find the right words. After several weeks, she asked her students to guess which lectures followed sleepless nights, but very few could guess correctly.
The effects of occasional sleep deprivation may feel stronger than how they actually appear in behavior.
Internal feelings of tiredness, humorlessness, and inability to find the right words may not always translate into noticeable performance issues.
In some situations, fatigue may be less noticeable to others than it is to the fatigued person.
A
The subjective effects of occasional sleep deprivation are more pronounced than are its effects on overt behavior.
Strongly supported. The professor noticed the subjective effects of her own sleep deprivation- feeling tired, humorless, and unable to concentrate. These were more pronounced than the effects on her outward, observable behavior, which her students did not notice.
B
No one can assess the overall effects of sleep deprivation on a particular person as well as that sleep-deprived person can.
Unsupported. It may be true that the professor’s students did not notice the overall effects of her sleep deprivation, but we do not know that no one can assess those effects as well as the sleep-deprived person can.
C
Sleep deprivation has less effect on professors’ job performance than it does on the job performance of others.
Unsupported. We do not know how the effects of sleep deprivation on the professor’s job performance might compare to the effects of sleep deprivation on the job performance of others. No information is given about the effects of sleep deprivation across different jobs.
D
Occasional sleep deprivation is not as debilitating as extended sleep deprivation.
Unsupported. The stimulus does not compare occasional and extended sleep deprivation, so we do not know which one might be more or less debilitating.
E
University students in a lecture audience tend to be astute observers of human behavior.
Anti-supported. The students were unable to observe the effects of sleep deprivation on their professor’s lectures, so we can assume that most of them are not astute observers of human behavior in this setting.