CIRUS, Centre for Sleep and Chronobiology, Woolcock Institute of Medical Research, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
School of Psychological Sciences and Health, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK.
J Health Psychol. 2021 May;26(6):795-804. doi: 10.1177/1359105319842927. Epub 2019 Apr 22.
Chronic insomnia is associated with subjective daytime cognitive dysfunction, but objective corroborative data are often lacking. In this study, we use Perceptual Load Theory to objectively assess distractibility in participants with insomnia ( = 23) compared with age- and sex-matched controls ( = 23). Following overnight supervised sleep observation, all participants completed a selective attention task which varied in the level of perceptual load and distractor congruency. The insomnia group was found to be more distracted than controls, whereas their selective attention mechanism appeared to be intact, with reduced distractor processing under high load for both groups. Insomnia symptom severity was positively correlated with participant distractibility. These findings suggest that there are insomnia-related daytime cognitive impairments that are likely to arise from compromised cognitive control rather than an ineffective selective attention mechanism. This task may be clinically useful in assessing daytime impairments, and potentially treatment response, in those with insomnia.
慢性失眠与主观日间认知功能障碍有关，但客观的佐证数据往往缺乏。在这项研究中，我们使用感知负载理论客观评估失眠患者（n=23）与年龄和性别匹配的对照组（n=23）的注意力分散程度。在经过一夜的监督睡眠观察后，所有参与者都完成了一项选择性注意任务，该任务的感知负载和分心物一致性水平不同。与对照组相比，失眠组更容易分心，而他们的选择性注意机制似乎完好无损，两组在高负载下对分心物的处理都减少了。失眠症状的严重程度与参与者的分心程度呈正相关。这些发现表明，存在与失眠相关的日间认知障碍，这些障碍可能源于认知控制受损，而不是选择性注意机制无效。这项任务可能在评估失眠患者的日间障碍方面具有临床意义，并且可能对治疗反应有帮助。
