replication and pedagogy in the history of psychology iv: patrick and gilbert (1896) on sleep...
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Replication and Pedagogy in the History of PsychologyIV: Patrick and Gilbert (1896) on Sleep Deprivation
Thomas Fuchs Æ Jeffrey Burgdorf
Published online: 28 September 2007� Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007
Abstract We report an attempted replication of G. T. W. Patrick and J. A. Gilbert’s
pioneering sleep deprivation experiment ‘Studies from the psychological laboratory of
the University of Iowa. On the effects of loss of sleep’, conducted in 1895/96. Patrick
and Gilbert’s study was the first sleep deprivation experiment of its kind, performed by
some of the first formally trained psychologists. We attempted to recreate the original
experience in two subjects, using similar apparatus and methodology, and drawing direct
comparisons to the original study whenever possible. We argue for a strong influence of
an ‘Americanized’ Wundtian psychology on Patrick and Gilbert, a claim supported
biographically by their education and by their experimental methods. The replication
thus opens interesting new perspectives, which are unlikely to be generated by any other
historical approach.
Keywords History of psychology � Replication � Science teaching �Sleep deprivation
G. T. W. Patrick and J. A. Gilbert’s sleep deprivation study, published in the PsychologicalReview in 1896, was the first such study conducted on human subjects. It was performed by
some of the first formally trained psychologists, and not as might be expected, by physi-
cians or physiologists. The study relied on a Wundtian approach, which had many things in
common with the measuring techniques of physiology but in addition drew on intro-
spective techniques, thereby adding an emphasis on mind and consciousness. However, the
study was isolated within the newly emerging discipline of psychology, and was also quite
different from the rest of Patrick and Gilbert’s work. Finally, unlike another famous sleep
The present paper was initiated as part of the ’Pedagogical Replications’ project at Bowling Green StateUniversity. The origins and nature of the project are described in Tweney (this issue).
T. Fuchs (&) � J. BurgdorfDepartment of Psychology, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403, USAe-mail: [email protected]
123
Sci & Educ (2008) 17:511–524DOI 10.1007/s11191-007-9106-6
deprivation study of the time (de Manaceıne 1894), Patrick and Gilbert did not inspire any
further work for many years to come.
Although sleep research in the late 19th century already had a scientific basis grounded
in medicine and physiology, the study of the effects of enforced wakefulness did not make
an appearance before the early 1890s. Earlier theories on the ability to function with little
or no sleep were largely based on medical case reports of insomniacs and the mentally ill,
on the reports of military commanders and soldiers under the strain of battle, and on
historical reports of sleep deprivation as a means of torture.
This changed when, in 1894, the Russian physician and physiologist Maria Michailovna
Manasseina1 reported the results of her seminal sleep deprivation study on young puppies
at the International Medical Congress at Rome. Manasseina subjected ten young dogs to
sleep deprivation, keeping them awake by constant walking and handling. The animals
invariably died within 96–120 h, presenting a variety of symptoms. The rapid decline of
her experimental animals led Manasseina to comment that:
As a rule, the puppy deprived of sleep for three or four days presents a more pitiful
appearance than one which has passed ten or fifteen days without food. (De Ma-
naceıne 1897, p. 66)
It is interesting to note that, in contrast to food deprivation experiments, it was not
possible to counteract the effects of sleep deprivation and that after several days of
enforced wakefulness the animals were irreversibly lost. Dissections of the dead animals
revealed small hemorrhages all over the cerebral cortex, which led Manasseina to
conclude, ‘In deprivation of sleep it seems to be the brain which suffers most ...‘(De
Manaceıne 1897, p. 66). Manasseina’s research received considerable attention, inspired
a series of replications (Bentivoglio and Grassi-Zucconi 1997) and ultimately gave rise to
a continuous stream of animal research on sleep deprivation within the field of
physiology and medicine.
Patrick and Gilbert’s ‘On the effects of loss of sleep’, published in the PsychologicalReview in 1896, was the first experimental contribution to the study of sleep deprivation
involving human subjects. Although clearly inspired by Manasseina’s seminal work, the
study expanded on it in several important aspects, which, in our opinion, justify interest in
a replication. Manasseina’s findings, in an animal model, were in line with earlier reports
that associated lack of sleep in humans with mental disease (MacNish 1836; Hammond
1873; de Manaceıne 1897) and with the misguided believe that, in China, sleep deprivation
was a form of capital punishment (Kleitman 1939, p. 300). However, not before Patrick
and Gilbert had anybody observed the effects of sleep deprivation in an experimental
setting in healthy human subjects.
1 The Original Study (Patrick and Gilbert 1896)
Patrick and Gilbert sought to assess not only the physiological but also the psychological
effects of ‘enforced abstinence from sleep’ (Patrick and Gilbert 1896, p. 469). Their
method was to keep three subjects awake for 90 h and to conduct a series of physiological,
psychological and biochemical tests at regular intervals. Some of the measurements were
purely physiological: temperature, pulse, body weight, grip and pull strength, and visual
1 ‘Marie De Manaceıne in the authorship of her publication, following the practice of the time of translatingnames into French for an international audience’ (Bentivoglio and Grassi-Zucconi 1997, p. 570).
512 T. Fuchs, J. Burgdorf
123
acuity. Others were designed to assess reaction- and discrimination times, sensibility to
pain, voluntary motor ability and fatigue. A subset of tests was generated to determine the
effects of loss of sleep on cognition and memory. In addition, urine samples were collected
to detect metabolic changes. Gilbert himself participated as a subject and went through the
procedure first in November 1895. Two observers, whose most important function was to
keep him awake, and to administer a series of tests every 6 h, permanently watched him.
Each test session was approximately 2 h long, therefore testing alone took up one third of
the total sleep deprivation time. All of the tests were practiced for several days before the
study to avoid learning effects.
Gilbert managed to stay awake for the full 90 h, passing time with his ‘usual daily
occupations’ (p. 470), and some exercise in fresh air when fatigue became overwhelming,
especially during the early morning hours. About 50 h of voluntary wakefulness had to be
supplemented with 40 h of mildly enforced wakefulness. According to the experimenters,
Gilbert ‘had to be watched closely and could not be allowed to sit down unoccupied, as he
showed a tendency to fall asleep immediately, his own will to keep awake being of no
avail’ (p. 470). After two nights of sleep deprivation Gilbert started to experience visual
hallucinations.
The subject complained that the floor was covered with a greasy-looking,
molecular layer of rapidly moving or oscillating particles... Later the air was full
of these dancing particles which developed into swarms of bodies like gnats...The
subject would climb upon a chair to brush them from about the gas jet or
stealthily try to touch an imaginary fly on the table with his finger. (Patrick and
Gilbert 1896, p. 470f)
These visual distortions apparently persisted for the remainder of the experiment until on
Saturday, November 31, at midnight, Gilbert was finally allowed to go to sleep. To assess
the depth of recovery sleep Gilbert was equipped with an electric bracelet on his ankle.
Every hour an adjustable current was applied to wake the sleeper, who had to signal his
awakening by the push of an electric button next to his bed. Compared to Kohlschuetter’s
(1862) and Michelson’s (1891, as cited in Patrick and Gilbert 1896) depth of sleep curves
in non-deprived subjects, sleep was found to be extraordinarily deep during the first three
hours of recovery sleep. Unfortunately, Gilbert’s sleep was so deep that an adjustable
‘resistance tube’ (Patrick and Gilbert 1896, p. 481) failed to produce the necessary current
to awake him, precluding a more detailed comparison. When the tube was removed and the
current was applied directly for an estimated time,’...the subject could not be aroused
sufficiently to ring the bell, but responded by a cry of pain’ (Patrick and Gilbert 1896,
p. 481).
A few months later, in March 1896 two more subjects underwent the same procedure.
Both were employed as instructors at the University of Iowa and were young men, 27 and
24 years old, to us only known as A. G. S. and G. N. B. This time the depth of recovery
sleep was not determined and some of the other tests were altered because of the previous
experiences with Gilbert. Gilbert himself did not show marked deficits on cognitive
measures. Consequently, the Ebbinghouse-nonsense-syllable-task, which was used to
assess memory, was replaced by a digit memorization task in later trials. In addition, a
‘reading letter’ task was added (the tests employed in our replication were derived from
this adjusted version of the experiment).
Both subjects completed the experiment successfully and stayed awake for the entire
period of 88 h. In the case of A. G. S., a sudden drop in body temperature on the last
Replication and Pedagogy in the History of Psychology IV 513
123
evening of the experiment gave rise to concern,2 but A. G. S. was nevertheless able to
complete the experiment. While A. G. S.,’... became very sleepy during the last 24 h and
had to be watched constantly’ (Patrick and Gilbert, p. 474), G. N. B., outwardly showed
few signs of sleepiness throughout the experiment. However, G. N. B. showed considerable
deficits during some of the later test sessions.
The outcome of Patrick and Gilbert’s study was characterized by considerable inter-
individual variability. The most consistent impairments of sleep deprivation were found in
the cognitive tasks, especially in the digit-memorization task, which G. N. B. could not
complete during two of the last three test sessions. The clearest findings in the physio-
logical category were a steady decline of reaction times in J. A. G. and A. G. S., and
consistent weight gain during sleep deprivation in all three subjects, followed by weight
loss during recovery sleep. Sensibility to pain decreased in all subjects throughout the
experiment, and, again in all subjects, acuity of vision showed a seemingly counterintuitive
increase.
The diurnal nature of sleepiness was experienced by all subjects, as were episodes of
‘semi-waking dreaming’ (Patrick and Gilbert 1896, p. 482), which most likely correspond
to today’s ‘micro-sleeps’ (Horne 1988). Neither G. N. B, nor A. G. S. experienced visual
hallucinations. The amount of extra recovery sleep taken was surprisingly small and varied
between 15% (A. G. S.) and 35% (G. N. B.) of the total sleep lost.
2 The Replication Project
Research reports are always aimed at specialized groups of readers that are familiar with
certain types of procedures, apparatus and theories. In the case of historical research
reports, this connection to the reader can be lost. Apparatus may be obsolete, procedures
are likely to have changed, and established theories may have been discarded and for-
gotten. One promising approach to overcome historical hurdles of that kind is the
replication of historical experiments (Tweney 2004). Moreover, research reports can only
serve as second hand accounts, and in no case, past or present, can they completely
substitute for first hand personal experience. This is especially true for sleep deprivation
and the subjective experience of its effects, but even more so for a study of sleep depri-
vation conducted at the end of the 19th century. Subjective experience served an integral
function in late 19th century psychology, and for many researchers it was a form of
scientific measurement. Therefore, in order to gain an understanding of the study in its
historical context, we found it necessary to attempt to recreate the actual experience of
being sleep deprived in two subjects, using similar apparatus and methodology.
We started our replication project on Sunday, March 7, at 12 pm. The two participating
subjects were the authors, J. B. and T. F. Unlike the subjects in Patrick and Gilbert’s study
we did not attempt to stay awake for 90 h. Our more moderate goal was to stay awake for
72 h, or three full days. Like Patrick and Gilbert we took a series of tests every 6 h. The
testing schedule followed the original (3 am, 9 am, 3 pm and 9 pm), but only 11 of the 15
original tests were replicated. Consequently, one testing session took approximately one
2 After a walk in the cold evening air A. G. S.’ temperature fell to 35.33�C but quickly regained its normalvalue. The researchers were probably especially sensitive to drops in body temperature because these wereamong the major pathological symptoms described in Manasseina’s sleep deprived dogs. However A. G. S.’drop in body temperature was not nearly as drastic as that described in Manasseina’s monograph (DeManaceıne 1897, p. 68).
514 T. Fuchs, J. Burgdorf
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hour. The biochemical category of tests was entirely omitted. Biochemical testing would
have required a considerable amount of organization and collaboration while not signifi-
cantly contributing to the experience.3 The same cannot be said for the electroshock/depth-
of-sleep measure (in the original study this test was only conducted on Gilbert), or the
pain-threshold tests, which were also omitted. Of the 11 measurements, pulse, temperature,
weight, grip and pull are self-explanatory. Weight, grip and pull were all determined with a
mechanical scale, while in the original study grip and pull were determined using a hand
dynamometer. ‘Digit memorization’ consisted of the latency to memorize a series of single
digit numbers (1–9) which were arranged in a sequence of 18 key cards.
Between each trial, the experimenter rearranged the sequence and three trials consti-
tuted one test session. As in the original study, obvious number combinations were
avoided. ‘Reaction time’ consisted of the latency to press a response key after hearing a
tone (15 trials/session). ‘Naming letter’ consisted of the number of letters that could be
read backwards in a typed passage in 60 s. ‘Voluntary motor ability’ and ‘fatigue’ were
tested by tapping on a reaction time response key as quickly as possible for 1 min. The
number of taps during the first 5 s was used as a measure of voluntary motor ability, while
the difference between the number of taps during the first and the last 5 s was used as a
measure of fatigue. We conducted this task with a reaction time response key/impulse
counter setup, which promptly broke in the middle of the experiment. Therefore, no direct
comparisons could be drawn between the original study and the replication on these two
measures. Patrick and Gilbert most likely relied on a setup similar to the one depicted in
Fig. 1, which was published in one of Gilbert’s earlier studies (Gilbert 1894). Finally,
‘acuteness of vision’ consisted of the maximum distance at which a participant could read a
Fig. 1 ‘Reaction Board’ used in Gilbert’s 1894 study ‘Researches on the Mental and Physical Developmentof School Children.’ The apparatus was designed to measure ‘voluntary motor ability’ and ‘fatigue’, reactiontimes, ‘reaction with discrimination and choice’ and ‘time-memory’ (Gilbert 1894, p. 46–52). The boardconsists of a tuning fork setup A, stimulating apparatus C, reaction time key E, tapping-apparatus F and anEwald Chronoscope H (Gilbert 1894). The device was obviously designed to be portable, which was not arequirement in the sleep deprivation study. However, the overall mechanics and setup are probablycomparable. For detailed information on the setup please refer to Gilbert (1894)
3 Patrick and Gilbert did not analyze the samples but had them analyzed by the Chemistry department.
Replication and Pedagogy in the History of Psychology IV 515
123
passage of printed text by the light of a candle. Although we did not assess depth of
recovery sleep, we did estimate the amount of extra sleep taken by T. F. during several
days following the replication experiment. The tasks were trained in one long training
session one day before the study.
The first 24 h went by without difficulty and were passed with our usual daily activities.
After 30 h, during the morning hours of the second day, J. B. started to experience
considerable difficulties staying awake. These problems were reflected in large deficits
across the board in the 9 am test session, and appeared to be explained by a total inability
to concentrate. During the tests, drowsiness became so intense that it became necessary for
J. B. to retire from the experiment. After hour 33, therefore, all tests were solely conducted
on T. F., who also experienced substantial difficulty staying awake during morning hours,
but showed only little effect on the test parameters. As in the original study T. F. expe-
rienced the marked diurnal rhythm of sleepiness, which was least pronounced in the
afternoons and evenings, when, according to observers, it was hard to tell a difference
between T. F. and a non-deprived person. Unlike the original study T. F., was able to sit
down without falling asleep during most of the experiment except for the early morning
hours (5–8 am) when he resorted to taking walks. On one of these walks, the subject
experienced a visual hallucination (daydreaming), which left him disoriented for several
minutes. After 72 h, T. F. was allowed to retire. During the first recovery night he slept for
14 h, and for 11 h during the second night. On the third night following the experiment, T.
F returned to his normal amount of 8 h of sleep. T.F. thus required 9 h of extra sleep during
the first two recovery nights, corresponding to roughly 38% of the sleep lost during the
experiment.
Throughout the experiment neither subject experienced an unusual drop in body tem-
perature. In addition, no marked changes in bodyweight were detected. The cognitive
deficits in the digit memorization task were minor. In the case of ‘naming letters’ both
subjects, despite sleep deprivation, showed an increase in performance. One notable
exception was J. B.’s final test session, where large deficits on most non-physiological
measures were encountered.
3 Comparison of Results
Some of the most consistent findings of Patrick and Gilbert had the character of general
observations that were not reflected in the results of their systematic testing (e.g., diurnal
nature of sleepiness, micro sleeps). These effects of sleep deprivation were readily
encountered in our replication.
Two of the three subjects in the original study showed a marked linear decline in
reaction times, a finding that received some attention in later reports (Manasesina 1897;
Horne 1988) and is also important in placing the study into its historical context (see
below). T. F. and J. B. also showed this trend, albeit in a more moderate form. During the
last test session of our replication we noticed that even in the late phase of the experiment
T. F. was capable of reaction times similar to baseline. Further analysis revealed that a
small number of extreme outliers was responsible for the observed increase in average
reaction times over the course of the experiment (Fig. 2). This happened in our opinion
because of momentary lapses of attention, which became more pronounced during sleep
deprivation and could go as far as to miss entire trials. Patrick and Gilbert provided
averages of their reaction times, therefore it was impossible to re-analyze their single trial
data. However, they also provided a measure of variability with their data, the mean
516 T. Fuchs, J. Burgdorf
123
variation, and, for the two subjects that showed a decrease in reaction times, this measure
was remarkably similar to the variability in T. F.’s reaction time data (Fig. 3). Comparing
their data with ours, we find that there is enough variability in Patrick and Gilbert’s data to
allow for similar outliers,4 suggesting that the decline in reaction times could be an
averaging ‘artifact’ due to an increased number of outliers as opposed to an overall decline
in reaction times.
Two of Patrick and Gilbert’s measures apparently relied more on the participants’
subjective impression of when they completed a task, rather than on a more objective
measure of the outcome. In the digit memory task, ‘the watch [was] stopped when the
subject announced his readiness to recite the list’ (Patrick and Gilbert p 476), however, no
mention was made in the report whether the subject was actually required to recite the list
without error, whether the subject had to repeat the task until no error was made, how many
errors were made on each trial, nor if the stop watch was started again. Similarly, in the
reading distance task, the participants chose the farthest distance at which they believed
they could accurately read a passage from Wundt’s ‘Studien’. Again, Patrick and Gilbert’s
study did not include statements on the accuracy of the participants’ subjective impres-
sions. The reliance on the subjective judgment of a trained ‘subject’ seems to resemble a
common practice at the turn of the 19th century, using introspection as it was employed by
Wilhelm Wundt and his followers (Danziger 1990).
To see if our ‘subjective’ judgments were indeed accurate in the digit memory task, we
wrote down our answers immediately after each trial. In the case of J. B. and T. F., latency
to memorize the digits was not correlated with accuracy. Both subjects showed a minor
increase in latency to memorize digits as a function of sleep deprivation, but not in the
percentage of correct recalls, which were close to 100% for both participants, comparing
the last sleep deprivation trial to the trial after recovery sleep. There appeared to be no
relationship between latency to memorize digits and percentage of digits recalled correctly,
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Fig. 2 Reaction time data plotfor T. F. Comparison of the first36 h of sleep deprivation (black)with the second 36 h (white).Note that although the mode ofreaction times hardly changesduring the second half of theexperiment, the range increasesconsiderably due to a number ofoutliers
4 In addition, G. N. B. who did not show an increase in reaction times showed considerably larger vari-ability during the first half of the experiment, which may have masked the effect observed in the other twosubjects.
Replication and Pedagogy in the History of Psychology IV 517
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indicating that in the memory task self-report may be an adequate measure to determine the
effects of sleep loss.
We did not replicate several of the effects encountered in the systematic measures of the
original study like weight gain/loss or marked deficits in the cognitive tasks. To Patrick and
Gilbert’s credit, it must be mentioned that cognitive deficits and, to some extent, weight
changes, have been replicated numerous times over the last 50 years (for review, see Horne
1988) and our failure to replicate them is most likely due to shortcomings on our part. In
our experiment, we only attempted to stay awake for 72 h. This may have contributed to
the difficulties replicating some of the original results, because in all likelihood some of the
effects of sleep deprivation are less pronounced at shorter durations.5
There are considerable individual differences regarding the effects of sleep loss, which
may be best illustrated by J. B. who showed severe deficits after only 33 h without sleep.
The number of subjects was small in the original study and even smaller in our replication.
Several of the effects in the original study were not observed across all subjects. In
addition, some of the cognitive tests were altered after Gilbert’s pilot trial further reducing
the number of subjects tested on identical tasks.
4 Historical Questions
In addition to the direct comparisons, a number of historical questions began to form as
we became involved in our project. Interestingly, both, G. T. W. Patrick and J. Allen
Gilbert were psychologists while sleep research in the second half of the 19th century
was mainly the domain of medicine and physiology. From today’s point of view, it is
therefore somewhat surprising that two young American psychologists would carry out
one of the first studies on sleep deprivation, a study that leaned heavily towards phys-
iological measurement. The physiological methods required for the study of sleep,
however, do lend themselves to a psychological approach characterized as ‘physiological
psychology’, a concept that differs considerably from today’s conception of psychology.
Founded and propagated by the German psychologist Wilhelm Wundt, this form of
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Fig. 3 A comparison of meanreaction times and variancebetween J.A.G., A.G.S. (1896)and T. F. (2004). The meanvariance is remarkably similarbetween the three individuals,suggesting that similar outliersmay be contained in their rawdata (error bars: standard error ofthe mean)
5 However, according to Kleitman, a period of 62–65 h of prolonged abstinence from sleep is sufficient toproduce maximal effects of sleep deprivation (Kleitman, p 303). In our replication, only T. F. was awake forthis period of time, but he did not show any marked effect on the cognitive or physiological measuresderived from the original study.
518 T. Fuchs, J. Burgdorf
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psychology gained some influence in the United States (Seashore 1942; Patrick 1947;
Rieber 2001) during the last quarter of the 19th century, at a time when Patrick and
Gilbert received their education. We thus argue for a strong influence of Wundtian
psychology on Patrick and Gilbert, a claim supported biographically by their education,
but also by their experimental methods. Patrick and Gilbert were both educated in the
United States, Patrick in a more philosophical tradition at Yale and Johns Hopkins, while
Gilbert, also at Yale, was a member of the first generation to graduate from American
psychology laboratories.
Patrick (1857–1949, Fig. 2) began his academic career at the University of Iowa in
1874. After receiving his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1878 he spent several years in
Colorado before he went on to Yale (1882–1885). At Yale, Patrick had the opportunity to
hear George Trumbull Ladd, one of the founding fathers of American psychology and a
great sponsor of experimental psychology. It was also during these years that Patrick got a
first taste of the writings of G. Stanley Hall, arguably Wundt’s strongest advocate in the
United States at the time:
...Hall’s Aspects of German Culture, describing all the new movements in psy-
chology and philosophy in Germany at that time, greatly influenced me. (Patrick
1947, p. 69)
In the fall of 1885 Patrick enrolled at Johns Hopkins where Hall was head of the
Department of Philosophy and Psychology:
Throughout the department at Johns Hopkins there was at this time especial interest
in psychology and the psychological laboratory. A new method of approach to the
science of the mind was coming to America. The old armchair psychology6 was
giving place to the new experimental and physiological approach. G. Stanley Hall
was taking the lead in this new movement. (Patrick 1947, p. 75)
However, Patrick, who majored in philosophy, did not earn his Ph.D. with experimental
work, but with a translation of the fragments of Heraclitus of Ephesos (Patrick 1889). In
1887, some time before he actually graduated from Johns Hopkins, Patrick received the
call from his old Alma Mater, the University of Iowa, and assumed the position of ‘Pro-
fessor of Mental and Moral Science’ (Patrick 1947). He founded the psychology laboratory
at the University of Iowa around 1890 and it reflected the strong influence of Hall and
German psychology (Seashore 1942; Patrick 1947):
Some of this influence I brought to Iowa. Almost from the beginning, I gave courses
in German psychology and philosophy... The first instruments I used in my labora-
tory for class demonstrations were those I had seen Wundt use before his classes in
Leipzig. (Patrick 1947, p. 89)
Furthermore, like almost every self respecting American psychologist at the turn of the
19th century (Sokal 1981), Patrick made several trips to Germany, notably one
extended trip in 1894 (Patrick 1947), the year before the sleep deprivation study. He
was registered at the University of Leipzig and attended several of Wundt’s and
Lotze’s lectures (Patrick 1947). Interestingly, some 30 years earlier at the same
University, one of Fechner’s students, Ernst Kohlschutter, performed what is now
6 A term coined by E. W. Scripture (Sokal 1980).
Replication and Pedagogy in the History of Psychology IV 519
123
considered by some to be the first scientific experiment on sleep.7 More than one
generation later the results of this experiment served as a baseline comparison in
Patrick and Gilbert’s study.
Although fascinated by psychology as an experimental science, Patrick had no formal
training in the use of experimental techniques. Probably as a consequence, in 1895, J. Allen
Gilbert (Fig. 3) was hired as a laboratory assistant. Gilbert was trained as an experimental
psychologist in E. W. Scripture’s laboratory at Yale. Scripture had received his Ph.D. from
Wundt himself and relied heavily on physiological measurement in his research. Scrip-
ture’s approach to physiological psychology although clearly inspired by German
psychology, differed from Wundt’s in a way that appears to be very important in an
attempt to place Patrick and Gilbert’s study in its historical context. Reaction time mea-
surements were an integral part of both Wundt’s and Scripture’s psychology. But, in
contrast to Wundt who attempted to measure the duration of mental processes under
controlled conditions (Sokal 1980), Scripture and many of his American colleagues, ‘...
measured the reaction times of different people under different conditions of fatigue and
stress’ (Sokal 1980, p. 264). Patrick and Gilbert’s study appears to be perfectly in line with
this Americanized version of physiological psychology as it measured the effects of sleep
deprivation on various physiological and mental processes.
Instead of measuring ‘the time it takes to think’ the Americans wished to test the
abilities of different people to perform different mental operations under different
conditions. (Sokal 1980, p. 264)
Scripture’s influence is also widely reflected in Gilbert’s other work. His ‘Researches on
the Mental and Physical Development of School Children’ (Gilbert 1894) conducted under
Scripture’s supervision (Scripture 1894 a), relied to a large extent on physiological mea-
surement. In a follow up study that was started prior to the sleep deprivation experiment,
Gilbert introduced this approach to the University of Iowa (Gilbert 1897), and, not sur-
prisingly, most of the measures employed in ‘On the effects of loss of sleep’ (Patrick and
Gilbert 1896) were directly derived from these two older studies (notably reaction times,
pain threshold, voluntary motor ability and fatigue). It is also worth noting that the analysis
of Patrick and Gilbert’s data, which relies mainly on the presentation of means and mean
variances, closely resembles Scripture’s approach to statistics although it does not nearly
reach the same level of sophistication (e.g. see Scripture 1894b). In summary, it seems
quite obvious that Wundtian psychology and its American derivatives had a major influ-
ence on both researchers, as they had on so many of the first psychologists at the turn of the
19th century (Seashore 1942).
7 Kohlschutter, a student of medicine measured the depth of sleep in human subjects using Fechner’s’Schallpendel’, a pendulum that would strike against a slate slab to produce varying sound intensitiesdepending on the length of the pendulum’s arc. With this instrument, Kohlschutter produced a depth of sleepcurve while observing sleepers over several nights and recording the sound intensities necessary to awakenthem. 33 years later the same curve served as a baseline comparison in Patrick and Gilbert’s recovery sleepexperiment.Although Kohlschutter’s curve was essentially flawed this should not make a difference inrespect to Patrick and Gilbert’s observations. The curve, which made its way into almost every textbook onsleep (Kleitman 1939), was flawed by Kohlschutters preconceptions. Kohlschutter, a firm adherer to’Weber’s law’ (Fechner’s biophysical law), regarded every value after the first two hours that was largerthan the preceding value as error, which led him to reject 45% of his original data (Swan 1929). This datawould have radically changed the appearance of the curve during the later part of the night, an error that wasonly discovered 67 years later (Swan 1929). For a detailed discussion, see Swan (1929) and Kleitman(1939).
520 T. Fuchs, J. Burgdorf
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Interestingly, Patrick and Gilbert conducted only one study on the subject of sleep. The
main reason for this was most likely the problematic relationship between the two
researchers. According to Carl Seashore (1942), Gilbert,’... fully aware of his superior
equipment as an experimental psychologist. [...] immediately began to chafe under the idea
of being an assistant, regardless of his actual academic title’ (Seashore 1942, p. 7). Carl
Seashore, a fellow student of Gilbert at Yale, was also the one to succeed Gilbert at the
University of Iowa although not as a lab assistant, but under the more prestigious title of an
assistant professor of philosophy (Seashore 1942). Unable to cope with either his low
status, nor with Patrick as his superior, Gilbert left the University of Iowa in 1897 after
only two years. According to Seashore (1942), he went on to study medicine and became a
successful psychiatrist.
Patrick remained at the University of Iowa for the rest of his career but soon withdrew
from experimental work.8 In 1900 he was ‘named head of the department of philosophy
and psychology’ (Seashore 1942, p. 9). Only 5 years later however, he withdrew from this
position ‘on account of frail health’ (Seashore 1942, p. 13) to be replaced by Seashore.
During the 31 years between the sleep deprivation study and his retirement in 1927, Patrick
published, to our knowledge, only one experimental study (Patrick 1899) but remained a
prolific writer on various topics of philosophy and psychology (e.g., Patrick 1947).
We do not know for sure if Patrick or his newly hired assistant Gilbert was the driving
force behind the sleep deprivation experiment. However, it seems relevant that Patrick’s
interest in sleep research started with Gilbert’s arrival, and ended with his departure. Also,
although the choice of physiological and cognitive measures may have been limited by the
methods used in physiological psychology as well as by the symptoms encountered in
Manasseina’s animal study, Patrick and Gilbert used some of the same experimental
procedures that were already employed in one of Gilbert’s previous studies (Gilbert 1894).
This, taken together with the fact that Gilbert actually went through the experimental
procedures as a subject, suggests that Gilbert’s role in this project was a rather active one,
exceeding the responsibilities of a lab assistant.
While the experimenter’s personal histories may explain why this study was their only
contribution to sleep research, we do not know why it was not until 1922 that similar
experiments were performed on humans (Robinson and Herman 1922; Robinson and
Richardson-Robinson 1922; Kleitman 1923). Thus, Patrick and Gilbert’s study stands
alone in the field of psychology at the turn of the 19th century. Why this is the case is not
entirely clear. But, within the field of psychology, the strict Wundtian approach lost ground
almost as rapidly as it had gained it several years earlier (Rieber 2001). Therefore the
interest in experiments that relied heavily on physiological measures may have been
limited only a few years after Patrick and Gilbert’s study was conducted. The fact that the
study was published in the Psychological Review may also have diminished its impact in
other disciplines like physiology or medicine (Figs. 4, 5).
However, Patrick and Gilbert’s study was not forgotten nor was it ignored at the time it
was published. Maria Manasseina gives a detailed account of the study in her monograph
on sleep (de Manaceıne 1897), and so does H. Addington Bruce (1915). Kleitman (1939)
refered to Patrick and Gilbert’s study as ‘the first study on man’ (p. 300) and Horne gave a
detailed review of the study in 1988, to name but a few. However, the study did not inspire
any replications or similar experiments on humans for the next 26 years to come.
8 Seashore’s talent as an experimental psychologist, his energy and his research interests may have played arole.
Replication and Pedagogy in the History of Psychology IV 521
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Perhaps the question is not why there was a lack of interest in human sleep deprivation
studies, but rather why this interest suddenly returned after more than one generation. The
achievements of single historical figures like Nathaniel Kleitman can probably not be
underestimated in this respect. Also, without doubt, the whole field of sleep research
greatly benefited from the availability of electroencephalographic recording techniques
after 1927 (Kleitman 1939). However, the first sleep deprivation studies after Patrick and
Fig. 5 J. Allen Gilbert (1867–XXX).‘1897 Hawkeye annual’University of Iowa Archives
Fig. 4 George Thomas WhitePatrick (1857–1949). ‘1897Hawkeye annual’ University ofIowa Archives
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Gilbert were conducted in 1922 (Robinson and Herman; Robinson and Richardson-Rob-
inson) and 1923 (Kleitman), several years before the arrival of electroencephalographic
methods. Therefore, the question remains whether the availability of new technologies
after the turn of the century rekindled an interest in sleep deprivation. It seems just as likely
that a renewed interest in fatigue and the borders of human resilience, perhaps facilitated
by World War I, paved the way for the use of new technologies and experimental sleep
deprivation alike.
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versity Press, CambridgeGilbert JA (1894) Researches on the mental and physical development of school children. Stud Yale Psychol
Lab 2:40–100Gilbert JA (1897) Researches upon school children and college students. Psychol Stud Univ Iowa 1:1–39Hammond WA (1873) Sleep and its derangements. J.B. Lippincott & Co, PhiladelphiaHorne J (1988) Why we sleep. Oxford University Press, New YorkKleitman N (1923) Studies on the physiology of sleep. I. The effects of prolonged sleeplessness on man. Am
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Author Biographies
Thomas Fuchs earned his PhD in experimental psychology at Bowling Green State University. In hisdissertation he conducted research on nocturnally migranting birds, investigating their potential as an animalmodel of sleep deprivation. Thomas is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Washington State Universitystudying positive affect and social attachment in infant rodents.
Jeffrey Burgdorf received his Ph.D. in psychology at Bowling Green State University, and he is nowResearch Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Northwestern University. Hisresearch involves using animal models of human emotionality to uncover the biochemicals that controlemotion in humans and animals.
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