Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
SIFFRE (1975) 6 months in a cave - Coggle Diagram
SIFFRE (1975) 6 months in a cave
BACKGROUND
In 1962 Michel Siffre Spend 63 days in a cave in France to see how his body clock reacted to being without normal time cues.
His interest in space and travel led him to the thought that astronauts might experience similar situations which could be replicated in a deep cave.
NASA and Europe sponsoring this study as it helped them shed light on how living without daylight cues could affect polyrhythms and how this good related to space trave
AIMS
To see how people would get on when travelling through space, where they would be isolates without any zeitgebers like daylight to set their biological clock
CONCLUTION
He found a lot of variation in his sleep cycle when cues to daylight and the time were missing
He concluded that body clock might be manageable if erratic. have a period of isolation in confined space was not manageable. Astronauts need to work on companionship.
Time is not something that humans work with understand without external cues
PROCEDURE
he lived in a chamber that was 131 meters from the entrance down a 30-meter shaft. (he didn't have very much but gallons of water and frozen food was provided in sufficient amount)
-he undertook experiments while in the cave
every time he woke up, he phoned his team of researchers, tell them he is awake and they's switch on the lights
daily experiments included his blood pleasure, physical and memory tests.
he exercised on an exercise bike and did target practice .
he sleeps when he was tiered and phoned his team to switch off the lights
RESULT
he was keen at the beginning but became depressed and lonely
thought about suicide and leaving the study
he came out with poor eyesight and psychological problems
short term memory was affected (also found in astronauts)
Beginning his sleep-wake cycle I was just longer than 24 hours
As the study progressed they became very varied (ranging from 18 to 52hours)
2 periods of 48 hours were found as predicted
STRENGTH & WEAKNESS
streangh
DETAIL: quantitative and qualitative date
Study was done over a longer period: 6 monts
weakness
the strong artificial lights acted as cues, affecting the internal body clock
Hard to generalise: the case of mise, damp and telephone makes this case are uniques and can not be generalized a an astronauts situation in space
EXTRA INFO
Cave experiments are no longer ethical.
When he came out of Midnight Cave in 1972, I was 100,000 US dollars in deb
in 1962 he psychologically experienced five real
minutes as though they were two.