Department of Psychology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA.
Sleep. 2021 Oct 11;44(10). doi: 10.1093/sleep/zsab124.
Despite centuries of using sleep deprivation to interrogate, there is virtually no scientific evidence on how sleep shapes behavior within interrogation settings. To evaluate the impact of sleeplessness on participants' behavior during investigative interviews, an experimental study examined the impact of sleep restriction on disclosure of past illegal behavior.
Healthy participants from a university community (N = 143) either maintained or curbed their sleep (up to 4 h a night) across 2 days with sleep monitored via actigraphy. They were then asked to disclose past illegal acts and interviewed about them. Next, they were reinterviewed following an example of a detailed memory account (model statement). Disclosures were blindly coded for quantity and quality by two independent raters.
Sleep-restricted individuals reported similar offenses, but less information during their disclosure with slightly less precision. Model statement increased disclosure but did not reduce the inhibiting impact of sleep loss. Mediation analysis confirmed the causal role of sleep as responsible for experimental differences in amount of information, and participants' reports suggested impaired motivation to recall information played a role.
The findings suggest that even moderate sleep loss can inhibit criminal disclosure during interviews, point to motivational factors as responsible, and suggest investigators should be cautious when interrogating sleepy participants.
尽管人们已经使用剥夺睡眠的方法来审讯了几个世纪，但实际上几乎没有科学证据表明睡眠如何在审讯环境中塑造行为。为了评估失眠对参与者在调查性访谈期间行为的影响，一项实验研究考察了睡眠限制对披露过去非法行为的影响。
通过活动记录仪监测，来自大学社区的健康参与者（N=143）在两天内保持或限制他们的睡眠（每晚最多 4 小时）。然后，要求他们披露过去的非法行为并对此进行采访。接下来，在提供详细的记忆陈述（示范陈述）后，对他们进行重新采访。披露内容由两名独立的评估者进行数量和质量的盲法编码。
睡眠受限的个体报告了类似的犯罪行为，但披露的信息较少，且精确度稍低。示范陈述增加了披露内容，但并未减少睡眠不足的抑制影响。中介分析证实了睡眠作为导致信息数量实验差异的因果作用，参与者的报告表明，回忆信息的动机受损也起了作用。
研究结果表明，即使是适度的睡眠剥夺也会抑制访谈期间的犯罪披露，表明动机因素是导致这种情况的原因，并提示调查人员在审讯困倦的参与者时应谨慎行事。
