School of Psychology, University of Glasgow, UK.
School of Psychology, University of Kent, UK.
Behav Res Ther. 2017 May;92:51-56. doi: 10.1016/j.brat.2017.02.001. Epub 2017 Feb 10.
Attention biases to sleep-related stimuli are held to play a key role in the development and maintenance of insomnia, but such biases have only been shown with controlled visual displays. This study investigated whether observers with insomnia symptoms allocate attention to sleep-related items in natural scenes, by recording eye movements during free-viewing of bedrooms. Participants with insomnia symptoms and normal sleepers were matched in their visual exploration of these scenes, and there was no evidence that the attention of those with insomnia symptoms was captured more quickly by sleep-related stimuli than that of normal sleepers. However, the insomnia group fixated bed regions on more trials and, once fixated on a bed, also remained there for longer. These findings indicate that sleep stimuli are particularly effective in retaining visual attention in complex natural scenes.
注意对睡眠相关刺激的偏向被认为在失眠的发展和维持中起着关键作用，但这些偏向仅在受控的视觉显示中得到了证明。本研究通过记录在自由观看卧室时的眼动，调查了有失眠症状的观察者是否会在自然场景中分配注意力于睡眠相关的项目。有失眠症状的参与者和正常睡眠者在对这些场景的视觉探索方面相匹配，并且没有证据表明失眠症状患者的注意力比正常睡眠者更快地被睡眠相关的刺激所吸引。然而，失眠组在更多的试验中注视床区，并且一旦注视在床上，停留的时间也更长。这些发现表明，在复杂的自然场景中，睡眠刺激特别有效地保持视觉注意力。
