Influence of Binaural and Monaural Beat in the Structure of a Monotonic Sound Stimulus on Sleep Latency

Objectives. To test the hypothesis that sleep latency (SL) does not depend on the nature (monaural (MB) or binaural (BB)) of the low-frequency beats embedded in a monotonous sound stimulus presented during the process of falling asleep in a large group of subjects. Materials and methods. An Android app was written for the study and installed on 221 subjects’ smartphones. Each subject took part in three experiments, with three different types of monotonous sound presented following a counterbalanced scheme; sounds were identical in pitch but differed in terms of the presence and type of beats: BB, MB, and control (without beats) sounds were used. Results. Repeat measures analysis of variance (rANOVA) showed no statistically significant effect of stimulus type on SL (p = 0.21). Pairwise comparison of SL for different stimulation conditions showed a significance level of the null hypothesis, corrected for multiple comparisons, of p = 1.0. Thus, SL was not significantly dependent on the type of monotonous sound stimulus used in these experiments: MB, BB, or control. Conclusions. The software app developed here is useful as a universal platform for assessing the impact of various external factors on the process of falling asleep at home.