Bedside Checking and Sleep: An Ecological Account of Monitoring and Disengagement

A bedside check can leave a person watching for the next update or allow the current monitoring task to end. We propose that its consequences depend on feasible information access, response responsibility and what the information permits the person to do next. Optional access is predicted to amplify the effect of responsibility on information-seeking attempts per assigned night. A separate experiment tests whether reliable task-complete information plus release from responsibility reduces information-seeking attempts and wake time during a fixed follow-up window relative to nonterminal information plus continuing responsibility. Information clarity and permission to disengage are distinct: a clear message can require immediate action. Ecological psychology specifies access relative to bodily capability and arrangement; cognitive and learning accounts explain appraisal and persistence. Comparisons with equally informed models test whether person-relative measurements provide economical prediction across layouts. Evidence from monitoring, on-call instructions, bedtime writing and wearable feedback constrains the account. A parameter-based simulation examines statistical performance under assumed attempt rates, overdispersion, missingness and credibility loss. The resulting program tests when a setting sustains monitoring and when it supports disengagement before subsequent sleep.