Citation

Brennen T. J. Environ. Psychol. 2001; 21(2): 191-199.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2001, Academic Press)

DOI

10.1006/jevp.2001.0201

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

At 69°N the annual swings in the physical environment are considerable. For instance, for two months in winter there is no direct sunlight and for two months in summer the sun does not set. Brennen et al. (1999) tested the cognitive performance of 100 participants living at 69°N in summer and in winter. Overall there were very few seasonal effects, and most of these were, contrary to expectation, winter advantages. In order to determine whether particular subgroups of the sample may have shown winter deficits, in this paper Brennen et al.'s database is analysed to investigate whether the age, gender or the proportion of life spent in northern Norway predicts the difference between performance in summer and winter on each test. The multiple regressions showed that age was a significant predictor on five tasks, gender on one task, and the proportion of life lived in northern Norway on none. Overall this analysis is in line with Brennen et al.'s conclusion: there are only very modest seasonal effects in cognition.