van Wijk Charles H, Meintjes W A J
Stellenbosch University, South Africa.
Undersea Hyperb Med. 2014 Sep-Oct;41(5):371-7.
Commercial diving often occurs in low visibility, where divers are reliant on their tactile senses. This study examined the effect of nitrogen narcosis on tactile memory for shapes as well as the influence of psychological and biographical factors on this relationship.
This crossover study tested 139 commercial divers in a dry hyperbaric chamber at 101.325 and 607.95 kPa (1 and 6 atmospheres absolute/atm abs). Divers memorized shapes while blindfolded, using their tactile senses only. Delayed recall was measured at the surface after each dive. Psychological and biographical data were also collected.
A significant effect of hyperbaric pressure on tactile memory was demonstrated, and a further effect of sequence of testing found. Thus, divers' delayed shape recall deteriorated by 8% after learning material at depth, compared to learning on the surface. There were also significant but small effects of psychological and biographical markers on tactile memory performance, with lower trait anxiety associated with better recall, and lower education associated with poorer recall.
The findings emphasize the importance of utilizing other forms of recording of events or objects at depth, particularly in conditions of low visibility during deeper diving, to aid memory encoding and subsequent recall at the surface.
商业潜水常常在能见度较低的情况下进行，此时潜水员依赖于他们的触觉。本研究考察了氮麻醉对形状触觉记忆的影响以及心理和个人因素对这种关系的影响。
这项交叉研究在干燥高压舱中对139名商业潜水员进行了测试，压力分别为101.325千帕和607.95千帕（1个和6个绝对大气压/atm abs）。潜水员在蒙眼的情况下仅依靠触觉记忆形状。每次潜水后在水面测量延迟回忆。还收集了心理和个人数据。
证明了高压对触觉记忆有显著影响，并且发现了测试顺序的进一步影响。因此，与在水面学习材料相比，潜水员在深度学习材料后形状延迟回忆下降了8%。心理和个人指标对触觉记忆表现也有显著但较小的影响，特质焦虑较低与回忆较好相关，教育程度较低与回忆较差相关。
研究结果强调了在深度利用其他形式记录事件或物体的重要性，特别是在更深潜水时能见度较低的情况下，以帮助记忆编码和随后在水面的回忆。
