An optical scan system for encoding and tabulation of visually scored sleep data.

A system for computer-assisted encoding, tabulation and analysis of visually scored sleep data is presented. The main features of the system are: (1) The use of computer-readable optical scan sheets for direct encoding of the sleep data. This eliminates the need for a separate transcription and/or key-punching operation. (2) The development of a visually scored data base, organized by NREM and REM periods, which contains all items of visually scored data indexed by time and/or page of occurrence in the sleep record. The advantages of this new system are: (a) the low cost per night of operation; (b) the facilitation of analysis of cycle phenomena and testing of new hypotheses that would usually involve retabulation of the data; and (c) the facilitation of analysis of real-time correlates of visually scored sleep stages.