In Search of Circasemidian Rhythms
Abstract
There is controversy over the existence of physiological or behavioral circasemidian (12-hour period) rhythms. However, a number of reports have shown a circasemidian error pattern in industrial and transportation environments and a circasemidian pattern in body temperature. To help us quantify the effects of fatigue, we hypothesized that body temperature, subjective sleepiness, simple response time and working memory speed would oscillate with a period of 12 hours (the circasemidian frequency); and that the parameter values describing the circasemidian oscillations of the measures would differ across genders and age groups. Measurements were acquired from 37 male and female subjects at half hourly intervals from 0700h to 1900h in constant conditions. Circasemidian cosine curves were fitted to the data of individual subjects by the least squares method. A statistically-significant, 12-hour pattern was found for body temperature and for subjective sleepiness, but not for simple response time or working memory speed. No differences were found with respect to gender or age group. Body temperature peaked at 16:49h and sleepiness peaked at 17:40h. Considering the large numbers of field observations of a two-peak pattern in errors and accidents, the failure to detect a circasemidian rhythmicity in task performance was attributed to the nature of task, itself. Future investigations should attempt to replicate our findings, acquire 24 h/day body temperature data, combine circasemidian with circadian cosinor estimates, determine which laboratory tasks display a circasemidian rhythmicity, try to determine why only some tasks may display that rhythmicity, and consider models other than the cosine curve.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Nov 01, 2006
- Accession Number
- ADA458153
Entities
People
- James C Miller
Organizations
- Air Force Research Laboratory