Dement

Strengths

Ethics (participants gave consent to be part of the study and were debriefed about the aim of the study.

Furthermore, right to withdraw was also maintained as four participants withdrew after two nights.

Finally, confidentiality was maintained as only the initials of the participants were used)

Validity (through the controls, the researchers ensured that the sleep of the participants would not be
disrupted as they were told not to have any stimulants and come at regular sleeping hours.

Furthermore, the electrodes were tied in the form of a ponytail to allow for free movement as well and
not disrupt the sleep)

Natural experiment (as the IVs of the stage of sleep as well as the eye movement patterns are naturally
occurring, it makes the study a natural experiment which increases the ecological validity of the study as
dreaming and sleeping is a natural phenomenon)

Correlation (the study looked at a positive correlation between subjective estimates and length of REM
sleep.

Correlations are useful in determining a relationship between two variables. A positive correlation
between these two variables was observed in this study ranging from 0.4 – 0.7)

Application to everyday life (sleep clinics can use this information to help identify what stage of sleep
patients might have problems in during their sleep, and can help improve their quality of sleep)

Qualitative data (the descriptions of the dreams are subjective and allow for qualitative data to be
collected which allows for in depth and detailed data to be collected. This allowed the researchers to
see whether the dream content matched the eye movement patterns)

Weaknesses –

Generalisability (the sample size is very small of only

5 participants and therefore, it is not generalisable

to a larger population)

Natural Experiment (as the IV is naturally occurring, the study is a natural experiment, and it is difficult

to replicate studies with naturally occurring IVs as they cannot be manipulated)

Self Report (self reports interviews were used through a tape recorder as participants reported

their dreams into it after being awakened. It is possible that participants may not provided honest or

truthful responses and may have chosen to not report certain dreams which would reduce the validity.