Response to Auditory Stimulation During Sleep

Abstract

The ability of man to discriminate between auditory stimuli while asleep is general knowledge. The specificity of this discriminatory ability has, however, never been fully documented. The works of Loomis, Harvey, and Hobart¹and Liberson²have shown that it is possible using electroencephalography to demonstrate the ability of a sleeper to discriminate auditory stimulation to a certain degree. They have also observed that a sleeper often will have EEG changes in response to auditory stimulation, but the subject will continue to sleep. Loomis et al. further observed that the EEG response to auditory stimulation was related to the depth of sleep and to the ambient noise level in the room. No observations were made regarding the EEG response to types of sound. In another publication by Loomis et al.³these authors observed not only that arousal to auditory stimulation was