A Randomized Controlled Trial of Sleep Schedule Regularization: Sleep Regularization Results in Quicker Reaction Times on a Dot-Probe Task

Andrews, Haylee

A Randomized Controlled Trial of Sleep Schedule Regularization: Sleep Regularization Results in Quicker Reaction Times on a Dot-Probe Task

Persistent URL

http://hdl.handle.net/10456/37115

Author(s)

Andrews, Haylee

Date Issued

November 10, 2014

Abstract

The effects of sleep regulation, sleep quality, and chronotype on attentional bias were studied in generally healthy college students. Participants were randomly assigned to either a sleep-as-usual group or a sleep regulation group (7 hours each night for five nights over a weekend). Participants completed a demographics questionnaire, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and the Chronotype Questionnaire (Oginska, 1996). Actigraphs recorded sleep efficiency for each of the five nights. Participants returned to the lab after five nights and completed a dot-probe task. It was hypothesized that participants in the sleep-as-usual group would have a greater attentional bias towards threatening stimuli. Attentional bias refers to reaction time and number of probes correctly identified in either the threatening or neutral position. In addition, it was hypothesized that participants with an evening chronotype, low sleep efficiency (<85%) and poor sleep quality (PSQI score >5) would have greater attentional bias towards threatening stimuli. Participants in the sleep-as-usual group responded slower to threatening stimuli (M=542.13, SD=120.28) than the sleep regulation group (M=452.14, SD=68.49), t(29)=2.48, p=.02. In addition, sleep-as-usual participants responded slower to neutral stimuli (M=531.97, SD=107.22) than the sleep regulation group (M=451.61, SD=60.99), t(29)= 2.49, p=.02. There were no significant differences between sleep groups and number of correctly identified probes overall or number of threatening probes identified. Chronotype and sleep quality were not significantly associated with attentional bias. As predicted, participants with low sleep efficiency, correctly identified more probes in the threat position (M=46.27, SD=1.75) than participants with high sleep efficiency (M=43.31, SD=4.19), t(20.35)=-2.59, p=.02 showing a greater attentional bias towards threatening stimuli.

Major

Neuroscience

First Reader(s)

Conklin, Sarah M.