Comparing Serial Diverse Imagining and Structured Problem Solving (Constructive Worry)

Investigators:

• Nancy Digdon (MacEwan University),
• Luc P. Beaudoin (Simon Fraser University, Cognitive Science and Faculty of Education),
• Kelly O’Neill (MacEwan University),
• Geoffrey Rachor (MacEwan University).

Insomnia Project Page

See http://www.sfu.ca/~lpb/insomnia/

Publications

• Beaudoin, L. P., Digdon, N., O’Neill, K. & Racour, G. (Abstract accepted for 2016 publication). Serial diverse imagining task: A new remedy for bedtime complaints of worrying and other sleep-disruptive mental activity. Poster to be presented at SLEEP 2016 (A joint meeting of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society). Denver, CO.

• Digdon, N. & Beaudoin, L. P. (2015, July). A test of the somnolent mentation theory and the cognitive shuffle insomnia treatment. Poster presented at the 37th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Pasadena, California USA.

This abstract and poster is available in SFU summit at: http://summit.sfu.ca/item/15270

Papers presenting these and other data from these experiments will be submitted to journals for publication.

Background reading

The following papers present the theory behind serial diverse imagining:

• Beaudoin, L. P. (2013). The possibility of super-somnolent mentation: A new information-processing approach to sleep-onset acceleration and insomnia exemplified by serial diverse imagining. Retrieved from http://summit.sfu.ca/item/12143

• Digdon, N. and Koble, A. (2011), Effects of Constructive worry, imagery distraction, and gratitude interventions on sleep quality: A pilot trial. Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being, 3 (193–206). doi:10.1111/j.1758–0854.2011.01049.x

• Morin, C. M., & Azrin, N. H. (1988). Behavioral and cognitive treatments of geriatric insomnia. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 56(5), 748–753.

Future Research Pursuant to Beaudoin’s Theory and Serial Diverse Imagining Treatment

With technology-administered serial diverse imagining (SDI), one can raise and address new research questions, such as the following.

• Under what conditions and for whom is technology-administered SDI preferable to self-administered SDI?
• Would viewing photos of the auditory content during the day potentiate the effects of SDI as mediated by reports of more vivid imagery or mnemonic processes?
• Is imagining targets of phrases more somnolent than imagining single words (“simple things”)? If so (or not), why (not), and/or under what conditions does it matter?
• Concepts vary continuously in concreteness and effort required to imagine them. More concrete concepts can be imagined more quickly. Are more concrete concepts (e.g., government vs government building) more somnolent?
• Would participants with a higher need for cognition benefit from more difficult or abstract concepts? Is this mediated by cognitive alertness?
• Is technology-assisted SDI (with SomnoTest/ mySleepButton) particularly more effective compared to the self-directed (DIY) technique in the middle of the night than before initial sleep onset, as mediated by levels of alertness and fatigue?
• Does the type of word affect sleep onset (SO) latency (e.g., predicate, common noun, person, place, scene, or person)?
• Given that dreams of falling, flying and soaring are common at SO (Germain, Nielsen, Zadra, & Montplaisir, 2000), are images of these activities particularly potent for sleep for some people under some conditions?
• Similarly, might moderately threatening images be somnolent under some conditions (e.g., if participants are prepared to accept them)?
• Are more concrete terms (always) more conducive to sleep? Given the putative memory consolidation role of SO (Stenstrom, Fox, Solomonova & Nielsen, 2012), can SDI be somnolently combined with learning activities?
• Is SDI more effective when combined with mindfulness training (to accept the negative cognitions and emotions that are sometimes associated with some of the content)?
• Can SDI effectively be combined with learning activities, such as auditory-flashcard learning of second language vocabulary? If so, under what circumstances?

Theoretical rationales and answers to these and many new questions can now be proposed and assessed with large numbers of subjects given apps such as SomnoTest and mySleepButton and ‘big data’ analytic techniques (Winne & Baker, 2013). This raises the possibility of dynamically tailoring content to the individual and their circumstances (e.g., based on their age, vocabulary, declarative knowledge, IQ, need for cognition, fatigue, tension, and sources of current perturbance).

Beaudoin’s theory also makes other predictions from which new treatments may be derived over and beyond SDI. For example, other forms of cognitive shuffling beyond SDI, such as a random body scan, or engaging in productive practice by attempting to answer diverse audio flashcards (Beaudoin, 2014cp, ) may be super-somnolent. Having rejected the notion of cognitive arousal and postulated that mental fatigue is somnolent, I believe it is worth investigating the possibility that activities such as mental math may be super-somnolent, at least for some people in some contexts.