D R Samson
Biographic Data
| ID | 21795 |
|---|---|
| NAME | D R Samson |
| GIVEN NAMES | D R |
| FAMILY NAME | Samson |
| SIGNATURE | SAMSON D R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Toronto |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3318-7652 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 45 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 24 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
The Effect of Migration on Perceived Safety and Sleep Quality: An Analysis From Rural and Urban Indigenous Wixárika Communities in Jalisco, Mexico
Are humans cathemeral? The diurnal activity model of Homo sapiens challenged
Humans are traditionally classified as diurnal primates, although field evidence from small-scale societies complicates a rigid behavioral reading of that designation. Here, I evaluate the Human Diel Flexibility hypothesis-the idea that Homo sapiens retains diurnal circadian physiology while expressing unusually flexible 24-hour activity for a large-bodied anthropoid. In study 1, I conducted actigraphy-based comparisons of diel (i.e., 24 hour) ac…
Connectedness to Nature, Ceremonial Participation, and Mental and Physical Health Among Rural and Urban Wixárika in Jalisco, Mexico
Assessing Sleep Architecture in Rural Eastern Cape Villagers of South Africa Using ŌURA Ring Data
We found that men who were responsible for livestock tended to have more % Light Sleep and less % REM Sleep than men without livestock. Livestock presence did not affect women's % Light or REM sleep stages, and % Deep Sleep remained unchanged between groups. Temperature was associated with changes in all sleep stages. Our findings highlight the need for naturalistic studies investigating sleep architecture in non-industrialized settings
Low‐to‐Moderate Daytime Physical Activities Predicted Higher‐Quality Sleep Among Habitually Active Agropastoralists
INTRODUCTION: The positive effects of physical activity (PA) on sleep are widely promoted by public health organizations and supported by abundant empirical evidence. Nonetheless, there remains a dearth of studies investigating the association between daytime PA and nighttime sleep among non-urban and nonindustrial populations that habitually engage in PA as part of their subsistence strategy. METHODS: Here, we examined the bidirectional relation…
Links between household and family social dynamics with sleep profiles among BaYaka foragers of the Congo Basin
Gibbon sleep quantified: The influence of lunar phase and meteorological variables on activity in Hylobates moloch and Hylobates pileatus
Taking the sleep lab to the field: Biometric techniques for quantifying sleep and circadian rhythms in humans
The Human Sleep Paradox: The Unexpected Sleeping Habits ofHomo sapiens
The human sleep pattern is paradoxical. Sleep is vital for optimal physical and cognitive performance, yet humans sleep the least of all primates. In addition, consolidated and continuous monophasic sleep is evidently advantageous, yet emerging comparative data sets from small-scale societies show that the phasing of the human pattern of sleep-wake activity is highly variable and characterized by significant nighttime activity. To reconcile these…
Sex differences in daily activity intensity and energy expenditure and their relationship to cortisol among BaYaka foragers from the Congo Basin
OBJECTIVES: The pooling of energetic resources and food sharing have been widely documented among hunter-gatherer societies. Much less is known about how the energetic costs of daily activities are distributed across individuals in such groups, including between women and men. Moreover, the metabolic physiological correlates of those activities and costs are relatively understudied. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Here, we tracked physical activity, energ…
Eulerian videography technology improves classification of sleep architecture in primates
Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) Group Sleep and Pathogen-Vector Avoidance: Experimental Support for the Encounter-Dilution Effect
The cost of deep sleep: Environmental influences on sleep regulation are greater for diurnal lemurs
OBJECTIVES: Primates spend almost half their lives asleep, yet we know little about how evolution has shaped variation in the duration or intensity of sleep (i.e., sleep regulation) across primate species. Our objective was to test hypotheses related to how sleeping site security influences sleep intensity in different lemur species. METHODS: We used actigraphy and infrared videography to generate sleep measures in 100 individuals (males = 51, fe…
Sleep in a comparative context: Investigating how human sleep differs from sleep in other primates
OBJECTIVES: Primates vary in their sleep durations and, remarkably, humans sleep the least per 24-hr period of the 30 primates that have been studied. Using phylogenetic methods that quantitatively situate human phenotypes within a broader primate comparative context, we investigated the evolution of human sleep architecture, focusing on: total sleep duration, rapid eye movement (REM) sleep duration, non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep duration, …
Segmented sleep in a nonelectric, small‐scale agricultural society in Madagascar
OBJECTIVES: We studied sleep in a rural population in Madagascar to (i) characterize sleep in an equatorial small-scale agricultural population without electricity, (ii) assess whether sleep is linked to noise levels in a dense population, and (iii) examine the effects of experimentally introduced artificial light on sleep timing. METHODS: Using actigraphy, sleep-wake patterns were analyzed for both daytime napping and nighttime wakefulness in 21…
Activity patterns in seven captive lemur species: Evidence of cathemerality in Varecia and Lemur catta
Cathemerality, or activity throughout the 24-hr cycle, is rare in primates yet relatively common among lemurs. However, the diverse ecological conditions under which cathemerality is expressed complicates attempts to identify species-typical behavior. For example, Lemur catta and Varecia have historically been described as diurnal, yet recent studies suggest that they might exhibit cathemeral behavior under some conditions. To investigate this va…
Hadza sleep biology: Evidence for flexible sleep‐wake patterns in hunter‐gatherers
OBJECTIVES: Cross-cultural sleep research is critical to deciphering whether modern sleep expression is the product of recent selective pressures, or an example of evolutionary mismatch to ancestral sleep ecology. We worked with the Hadza, an equatorial, hunter-gatherer community in Tanzania, to better understand ancestral sleep patterns and to test hypotheses related to sleep segmentation. METHODS: We used actigraphy to analyze sleep-wake patter…
The evolution of human sleep: Technological and cultural innovation associated with sleep-wake regulation among Hadza hunter-gatherers
Orangutans ( Pongo spp .) have deeper, more efficient sleep than baboons ( Papio papio ) in captivity
The nightly construction of arboreal sleeping platforms or "nests" has been observed among every great ape population studied to date. However, this behavior has never been reported in any other nonhuman primate and comparisons between ape and monkey sleep illuminate the link between sleeping substrates, positional behavior, and sleep efficiency. Here, we compare sleep depth and efficiency and night-time positional behavior between a large-bodied…
Sleep intensity and the evolution of human cognition
Over the past four decades, scientists have made substantial progress in understanding the evolution of sleep patterns across the Tree of Life. Remarkably, the specifics of sleep along the human lineage have been slow to emerge. This is surprising, given our unique mental and behavioral capacity and the importance of sleep for individual cognitive performance. One view is that our species' sleep architecture is in accord with patterns documented …
Do chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) exhibit sleep related behaviors that minimize exposure to parasitic arthropods? A preliminary report on the possible anti-vector function of chimpanzee …
The chimpanzee nest quantified: Morphology and ecology of arboreal sleeping platforms within the dry habitat site of Toro-Semliki Wildlife Reserve, Uganda
A Thermodynamic Comparison of Arboreal and Terrestrial Sleeping Sites for Dry‐Habitat Chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii ) at the Toro‐Semliki Wildlife Reserve, Uganda
The nightly construction of an arboreal sleeping platform (SP) has been observed among every chimpanzee's population studied to date. Here, we report on bioclimatic aspects of SP site choice among dry‐habitat chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii ) at the Toro‐Semliki Wildlife Reserve, Uganda. We placed a portable weather monitor within 1 m of chimpanzee SPs and compared the microenvironment of this site with terrestrial monitors placed 10…
Stones of Contention: The Acheulean Handaxe Lethal Projectile Controversy
The function of the Acheulean handaxe is controversial. Several competing usage theories are currently being debated amongst paleoanthropologists. One such hypothesis is the lethal projectile theory. Past experimentation has indicated that the handaxe could have been used as a lethal projectile thrown from a distance to hunt prey. Ibis actualistic study augments such experimentation. The latest argument posed by Whittaker and McCall opposing the …
Sleep in a comparative context: Investigating how human sleep differs from sleep in other primates
OBJECTIVES: Primates vary in their sleep durations and, remarkably, humans sleep the least per 24-hr period of the 30 primates that have been studied. Using phylogenetic methods that quantitatively situate human phenotypes within a broader primate comparative context, we investigated the evolution of human sleep architecture, focusing on: total sleep duration, rapid eye movement (REM) sleep duration, non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep duration, …
Hadza sleep biology: Evidence for flexible sleep‐wake patterns in hunter‐gatherers
OBJECTIVES: Cross-cultural sleep research is critical to deciphering whether modern sleep expression is the product of recent selective pressures, or an example of evolutionary mismatch to ancestral sleep ecology. We worked with the Hadza, an equatorial, hunter-gatherer community in Tanzania, to better understand ancestral sleep patterns and to test hypotheses related to sleep segmentation. METHODS: We used actigraphy to analyze sleep-wake patter…
Stones of Contention: The Acheulean Handaxe Lethal Projectile Controversy
The function of the Acheulean handaxe is controversial. Several competing usage theories are currently being debated amongst paleoanthropologists. One such hypothesis is the lethal projectile theory. Past experimentation has indicated that the handaxe could have been used as a lethal projectile thrown from a distance to hunt prey. Ibis actualistic study augments such experimentation. The latest argument posed by Whittaker and McCall opposing the …
Sex differences in daily activity intensity and energy expenditure and their relationship to cortisol among BaYaka foragers from the Congo Basin
OBJECTIVES: The pooling of energetic resources and food sharing have been widely documented among hunter-gatherer societies. Much less is known about how the energetic costs of daily activities are distributed across individuals in such groups, including between women and men. Moreover, the metabolic physiological correlates of those activities and costs are relatively understudied. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Here, we tracked physical activity, energ…
The evolution of human sleep: Technological and cultural innovation associated with sleep-wake regulation among Hadza hunter-gatherers
The Human Sleep Paradox: The Unexpected Sleeping Habits ofHomo sapiens
The human sleep pattern is paradoxical. Sleep is vital for optimal physical and cognitive performance, yet humans sleep the least of all primates. In addition, consolidated and continuous monophasic sleep is evidently advantageous, yet emerging comparative data sets from small-scale societies show that the phasing of the human pattern of sleep-wake activity is highly variable and characterized by significant nighttime activity. To reconcile these…
Links between household and family social dynamics with sleep profiles among BaYaka foragers of the Congo Basin
Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) Group Sleep and Pathogen-Vector Avoidance: Experimental Support for the Encounter-Dilution Effect
The cost of deep sleep: Environmental influences on sleep regulation are greater for diurnal lemurs
OBJECTIVES: Primates spend almost half their lives asleep, yet we know little about how evolution has shaped variation in the duration or intensity of sleep (i.e., sleep regulation) across primate species. Our objective was to test hypotheses related to how sleeping site security influences sleep intensity in different lemur species. METHODS: We used actigraphy and infrared videography to generate sleep measures in 100 individuals (males = 51, fe…
Stones of Contention: The Acheulean Handaxe Lethal Projectile Controversy
The function of the Acheulean handaxe is controversial. Several competing usage theories are currently being debated amongst paleoanthropologists. One such hypothesis is the lethal projectile theory. Past experimentation has indicated that the handaxe could have been used as a lethal projectile thrown from a distance to hunt prey. Ibis actualistic study augments such experimentation. The latest argument posed by Whittaker and McCall opposing the …
The chimpanzee nest quantified: Morphology and ecology of arboreal sleeping platforms within the dry habitat site of Toro-Semliki Wildlife Reserve, Uganda
A Thermodynamic Comparison of Arboreal and Terrestrial Sleeping Sites for Dry‐Habitat Chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii ) at the Toro‐Semliki Wildlife Reserve, Uganda
The nightly construction of an arboreal sleeping platform (SP) has been observed among every chimpanzee's population studied to date. Here, we report on bioclimatic aspects of SP site choice among dry‐habitat chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii ) at the Toro‐Semliki Wildlife Reserve, Uganda. We placed a portable weather monitor within 1 m of chimpanzee SPs and compared the microenvironment of this site with terrestrial monitors placed 10…
Do chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) exhibit sleep related behaviors that minimize exposure to parasitic arthropods? A preliminary report on the possible anti-vector function of chimpanzee …
Orangutans ( Pongo spp .) have deeper, more efficient sleep than baboons ( Papio papio ) in captivity
The nightly construction of arboreal sleeping platforms or "nests" has been observed among every great ape population studied to date. However, this behavior has never been reported in any other nonhuman primate and comparisons between ape and monkey sleep illuminate the link between sleeping substrates, positional behavior, and sleep efficiency. Here, we compare sleep depth and efficiency and night-time positional behavior between a large-bodied…
Sleep intensity and the evolution of human cognition
Over the past four decades, scientists have made substantial progress in understanding the evolution of sleep patterns across the Tree of Life. Remarkably, the specifics of sleep along the human lineage have been slow to emerge. This is surprising, given our unique mental and behavioral capacity and the importance of sleep for individual cognitive performance. One view is that our species' sleep architecture is in accord with patterns documented …
Segmented sleep in a nonelectric, small‐scale agricultural society in Madagascar
OBJECTIVES: We studied sleep in a rural population in Madagascar to (i) characterize sleep in an equatorial small-scale agricultural population without electricity, (ii) assess whether sleep is linked to noise levels in a dense population, and (iii) examine the effects of experimentally introduced artificial light on sleep timing. METHODS: Using actigraphy, sleep-wake patterns were analyzed for both daytime napping and nighttime wakefulness in 21…
Activity patterns in seven captive lemur species: Evidence of cathemerality in Varecia and Lemur catta
Cathemerality, or activity throughout the 24-hr cycle, is rare in primates yet relatively common among lemurs. However, the diverse ecological conditions under which cathemerality is expressed complicates attempts to identify species-typical behavior. For example, Lemur catta and Varecia have historically been described as diurnal, yet recent studies suggest that they might exhibit cathemeral behavior under some conditions. To investigate this va…
Hadza sleep biology: Evidence for flexible sleep‐wake patterns in hunter‐gatherers
OBJECTIVES: Cross-cultural sleep research is critical to deciphering whether modern sleep expression is the product of recent selective pressures, or an example of evolutionary mismatch to ancestral sleep ecology. We worked with the Hadza, an equatorial, hunter-gatherer community in Tanzania, to better understand ancestral sleep patterns and to test hypotheses related to sleep segmentation. METHODS: We used actigraphy to analyze sleep-wake patter…
The evolution of human sleep: Technological and cultural innovation associated with sleep-wake regulation among Hadza hunter-gatherers
The cost of deep sleep: Environmental influences on sleep regulation are greater for diurnal lemurs
OBJECTIVES: Primates spend almost half their lives asleep, yet we know little about how evolution has shaped variation in the duration or intensity of sleep (i.e., sleep regulation) across primate species. Our objective was to test hypotheses related to how sleeping site security influences sleep intensity in different lemur species. METHODS: We used actigraphy and infrared videography to generate sleep measures in 100 individuals (males = 51, fe…
Sleep in a comparative context: Investigating how human sleep differs from sleep in other primates
OBJECTIVES: Primates vary in their sleep durations and, remarkably, humans sleep the least per 24-hr period of the 30 primates that have been studied. Using phylogenetic methods that quantitatively situate human phenotypes within a broader primate comparative context, we investigated the evolution of human sleep architecture, focusing on: total sleep duration, rapid eye movement (REM) sleep duration, non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep duration, …
Eulerian videography technology improves classification of sleep architecture in primates
Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) Group Sleep and Pathogen-Vector Avoidance: Experimental Support for the Encounter-Dilution Effect
Sex differences in daily activity intensity and energy expenditure and their relationship to cortisol among BaYaka foragers from the Congo Basin
OBJECTIVES: The pooling of energetic resources and food sharing have been widely documented among hunter-gatherer societies. Much less is known about how the energetic costs of daily activities are distributed across individuals in such groups, including between women and men. Moreover, the metabolic physiological correlates of those activities and costs are relatively understudied. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Here, we tracked physical activity, energ…
Gibbon sleep quantified: The influence of lunar phase and meteorological variables on activity in Hylobates moloch and Hylobates pileatus
Taking the sleep lab to the field: Biometric techniques for quantifying sleep and circadian rhythms in humans
The Human Sleep Paradox: The Unexpected Sleeping Habits ofHomo sapiens
The human sleep pattern is paradoxical. Sleep is vital for optimal physical and cognitive performance, yet humans sleep the least of all primates. In addition, consolidated and continuous monophasic sleep is evidently advantageous, yet emerging comparative data sets from small-scale societies show that the phasing of the human pattern of sleep-wake activity is highly variable and characterized by significant nighttime activity. To reconcile these…
Links between household and family social dynamics with sleep profiles among BaYaka foragers of the Congo Basin
Low‐to‐Moderate Daytime Physical Activities Predicted Higher‐Quality Sleep Among Habitually Active Agropastoralists
INTRODUCTION: The positive effects of physical activity (PA) on sleep are widely promoted by public health organizations and supported by abundant empirical evidence. Nonetheless, there remains a dearth of studies investigating the association between daytime PA and nighttime sleep among non-urban and nonindustrial populations that habitually engage in PA as part of their subsistence strategy. METHODS: Here, we examined the bidirectional relation…
The Effect of Migration on Perceived Safety and Sleep Quality: An Analysis From Rural and Urban Indigenous Wixárika Communities in Jalisco, Mexico
Are humans cathemeral? The diurnal activity model of Homo sapiens challenged
Humans are traditionally classified as diurnal primates, although field evidence from small-scale societies complicates a rigid behavioral reading of that designation. Here, I evaluate the Human Diel Flexibility hypothesis-the idea that Homo sapiens retains diurnal circadian physiology while expressing unusually flexible 24-hour activity for a large-bodied anthropoid. In study 1, I conducted actigraphy-based comparisons of diel (i.e., 24 hour) ac…
Connectedness to Nature, Ceremonial Participation, and Mental and Physical Health Among Rural and Urban Wixárika in Jalisco, Mexico
Assessing Sleep Architecture in Rural Eastern Cape Villagers of South Africa Using ŌURA Ring Data
We found that men who were responsible for livestock tended to have more % Light Sleep and less % REM Sleep than men without livestock. Livestock presence did not affect women's % Light or REM sleep stages, and % Deep Sleep remained unchanged between groups. Temperature was associated with changes in all sleep stages. Our findings highlight the need for naturalistic studies investigating sleep architecture in non-industrialized settings
Biology (18 works) · Sleep and Wakefulness Research (13 works) · Primate Behavior and Ecology (12 works) · Ecology (11 works) · Sleep (system call) (11 works) · Ecology (10 works) · Sleep and related disorders (10 works) · Psychology (8 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Demography (7 works)