Deliens Gaétane, Stercq Fanny, Mary Alison, Slama Hichem, Cleeremans Axel, Peigneux Philippe, Kissine Mikhail
CO3-Consciousness, Cognition & Computation at CRCN-Center for Research in Cognition and Neurosciences and UNI-ULB Neurosciences Institute, Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Brussels, Belgium.
UR2NF-Neuropsychology and Functional Neuroimaging Research Group at CRCN-Center for Research in Cognition and Neurosciences and UNI-ULB Neurosciences Institute, Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Brussels, Belgium.
PLoS One. 2015 Nov 4;10(11):e0140527. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0140527. eCollection 2015.
There is growing evidence that sleep plays a pivotal role on health, cognition and emotional regulation. However, the interplay between sleep and social cognition remains an uncharted research area. In particular, little is known about the impact of sleep deprivation on sarcasm detection, an ability which, once altered, may hamper everyday social interactions. The aim of this study is to determine whether sleep-deprived participants are as able as sleep-rested participants to adopt another perspective in gauging sarcastic statements. At 9am, after a whole night of sleep (n = 15) or a sleep deprivation night (n = 15), participants had to read the description of an event happening to a group of friends. An ambiguous voicemail message left by one of the friends on another's phone was then presented, and participants had to decide whether the recipient would perceive the message as sincere or as sarcastic. Messages were uttered with a neutral intonation and were either: (1) sarcastic from both the participant's and the addressee's perspectives (i.e. both had access to the relevant background knowledge to gauge the message as sarcastic), (2) sarcastic from the participant's but not from the addressee's perspective (i.e. the addressee lacked context knowledge to detect sarcasm) or (3) sincere. A fourth category consisted in messages sarcastic from both the participant's and from the addressee's perspective, uttered with a sarcastic tone. Although sleep-deprived participants were as accurate as sleep-rested participants in interpreting the voice message, they were also slower. Blunted reaction time was not fully explained by generalized cognitive slowing after sleep deprivation; rather, it could reflect a compensatory mechanism supporting normative accuracy level in sarcasm understanding. Introducing prosodic cues compensated for increased processing difficulties in sarcasm detection after sleep deprivation. Our findings support the hypothesis that sleep deprivation might damage the flow of social interactions by slowing perspective-taking processes.
越来越多的证据表明，睡眠在健康、认知和情绪调节方面起着关键作用。然而，睡眠与社会认知之间的相互作用仍是一个未知的研究领域。特别是，关于睡眠剥夺对讽刺话语识别的影响知之甚少，而这种能力一旦改变，可能会妨碍日常社交互动。本研究的目的是确定睡眠不足的参与者在判断讽刺话语时是否与睡眠充足的参与者一样能够采取另一个人的视角。上午9点，在经过一整晚睡眠（n = 15）或一晚睡眠剥夺（n = 15）后，参与者必须阅读一段关于一群朋友发生的事件的描述。然后呈现其中一个朋友留在另一个人手机上的一条模棱两可的语音邮件信息，参与者必须决定接收者会认为该信息是真诚的还是讽刺的。信息以中性语调说出，并且要么是：（1）从参与者和收件人的角度来看都是讽刺的（即双方都有相关背景知识来判断该信息是讽刺的），（2）从参与者的角度来看是讽刺的但从收件人的角度来看不是（即收件人缺乏识别讽刺的背景知识），或者（3）是真诚的。第四类包括从参与者和收件人的角度来看都是讽刺的信息，以讽刺的语气说出。尽管睡眠不足的参与者在解读语音信息方面与睡眠充足的参与者一样准确，但他们的速度也较慢。睡眠剥夺后的普遍认知减慢并不能完全解释反应时间的迟钝；相反，它可能反映了一种补偿机制，以支持在讽刺理解中的正常准确水平。引入韵律线索弥补了睡眠剥夺后讽刺话语识别中增加的处理困难。我们的研究结果支持这样一种假设，即睡眠剥夺可能会通过减缓视角转换过程来损害社交互动的流畅性。
