Department of Psychology, Sociology and Politics, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, United Kingdom.
J Clin Sleep Med. 2018 Jun 15;14(6):959-965. doi: 10.5664/jcsm.7160.
To date, evidence of an attentional bias in insomnia has mostly been obtained through reaction time tasks, with a limited number of studies using eye tracking. Here, using an eye-tracking paradigm, this study sought to determine whether individuals with insomnia display an attentional bias for novel faces depicting tiredness.
Individuals with insomnia (n = 20) and normal sleepers (n = 20) viewed a series of face pairs depicting neutral and tired expressions each for periods of 4000 milliseconds. Eye movements were recorded using eye tracking, and first fixation onset, first fixation duration, total fixation duration, and total gaze duration were examined for three interest regions (eyes, nose, mouth).
Significant group × face interactions for total fixation duration and total gaze duration indicated that, regardless of interest-region, participants with insomnia spent more time fixating on and observing tired faces relative to neutral faces when compared with normal sleepers. Additionally, significant group × face × interest-region interactions for total fixation duration and total gaze duration indicated that participants with insomnia spent more time observing the eye region of the tired faces than the eye region of the neutral faces when compared with normal sleepers.
Individuals with insomnia display an attentional bias toward tired faces, more specifically for the eye region compared to normal sleepers. These findings contribute to our understanding of face perception in insomnia and provide more objective support for cognitive models of insomnia, suggesting that individuals with insomnia selectively attend to faces for tiredness cues.
迄今为止，失眠的注意力偏向证据主要通过反应时间任务获得，而使用眼动追踪的研究数量有限。在此，通过眼动追踪范式，本研究旨在确定失眠者是否对表现出疲劳的新面孔存在注意力偏向。
失眠者（n=20）和正常睡眠者（n=20）观看了一系列分别呈现中性和疲倦表情的面孔对，每个面孔持续 4000 毫秒。使用眼动追踪记录眼动，检查了三个感兴趣区域（眼睛、鼻子、嘴巴）的首次注视起始时间、首次注视持续时间、总注视持续时间和总注视时间。
总注视持续时间和总注视时间的显著组×面孔交互作用表明，无论兴趣区域如何，与正常睡眠者相比，失眠者注视和观察疲倦面孔的时间都比中性面孔多。此外，总注视持续时间和总注视时间的显著组×面孔×兴趣区域交互作用表明，与正常睡眠者相比，失眠者观察疲倦面孔的眼睛区域的时间多于中性面孔的眼睛区域。
失眠者对疲倦面孔表现出注意力偏向，与正常睡眠者相比，更具体地说，对眼睛区域表现出注意力偏向。这些发现有助于我们理解失眠中的面孔感知，并为失眠的认知模型提供更客观的支持，表明失眠者会选择性地关注疲倦面孔的提示。
