![\"PROA600-0_260X200_Harry's_UK\"](\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/files\/2014\/05\/sleep1.jpg\")
<\/a>Don’t fall asleep on bread.<\/p><\/div>\n
The negative effects on cognition that sleep deprivation causes have frequently been thought to be a general decrease in function, as opposed to a specific effect with particular characteristics. In this way, the effects of sleep deprivation on cognitive processes are not fully understood. However, a recent study by researchers at the University of Trieste in Italy attempted to explore some more specifics about how sleep deprivation affects the brain and cognitive function.<\/p>\n
One of the most important parts of cognition that suffers when we don\u2019t sleep is attention. Attentional processes are involved in focusing on the task at hand. We are all familiar with gaps in attention. From being unable to focus the morning after a long night of partying, to being unable to sit still in anticipation of an exciting event, or being extremely tired after staying up all night with a newborn baby, we are all familiar with having difficulty focusing on specific parts of our lives. Thus, attention is a very important process, because it controls our ability to do anything. As David Strayer put it, attention is the Holy Grail. It controls how cognitive processes work, and what they work on.<\/p>\n
Posner & Raichle (1994) previously devised a model that denotes three separate components that collectively make up attention: alerting, orienting, and executive control. Alerting is essentially the quality of being alert or ready to attend to stimuli, orienting is ability to select from a variety of information, and executive control is basically control over what information is attended to and \u201clet into\u201d conscious awareness. Overall, both \u201calerting\u201d and \u201corienting\u201d are primarily automatic, and as such can occur outside of conscious awareness. However, the last component\u2014executive control\u2014is heavily dependent on controlled processes, which are the mental processes that take effort and time to carry out. To provide an example, say you are trying to answer a very hard multiple choice question on a final exam, but you keep thinking about the season finale of Breaking Bad that\u2019s on tonight. Your ability to inhibit those irrelevant thoughts is a controlled process\u2014executive control.<\/p>\n
It seems paramount to understand exactly how attention suffers with lack of sleep. Using the alerting, orienting, and executive control model of attention, the Italian study tried to specifically determine which parts of this dynamic scheme of attention are suffering.<\/p>\n
Jugovac & Cavallero (2012) began by separating 30 participants between the ages of 20-29 into two groups: the first group slept normally the previous night and the experimental group had 24 hours of sleep deprivation prior to the experiment. The experiment used the Attention Network Test, which basically compares performance on three types of attentional tasks. An array of various stimuli, such as five left and right arrows, are presented in a horizontal line and changed according to which attentional task is being tested, and the participant must select a direction on the keypad that corresponds to a \u201ctarget.\u201d In other words, a participant must be attentive to notice when and how the display has changed. An individual baseline was established for each individual prior to the study.<\/p>\n
The control group was found to have normal functioning on all aspects of attention, as was hypothesized by the researchers. However, the group that experienced lack of sleep had decreased executive control in attention, meaning they could not coordinate between various stimuli in terms of attention. Still, the sleep deprivation group had normal results for the other two types of attention, and as such the only affected aspect of attention was executive control. As an aside, previous research findings such as decreased reaction time and poor cognitive performance in sleep deprived subjects were supported by this study.<\/p>\n
To provide a real-life example of this effect, imagine if you had not slept for 24 hours before an exam as a result of an all-night cramming session. While taking the exam, alerting and orienting would be essentially unmodified, and so one would be able to pay attention to stimuli and would be able to pick which stimuli to focus on. However, the ability to decide between stimuli, or \u201clet one in\u201d as opposed to another one, would be decreased. Say, in this example, that the professor is bouncing his\/her hand on a loud stapler throughout the exam. If you are sleep deprived, it is going to be significantly harder to focus on the test than if you had gotten a full night\u2019s rest.<\/p>\n
In effect, Jugovac & Cavallero\u2019s (2012) ANT study on sleep deprivation suggests that lack of sleep specifically alters the executive control of attention, rather than alerting or orienting to stimuli. In essence, sleep deprivation has a real effect on attention with real consequences, and the remainder of attention, such as alerting and orienting to stimuli, are fundamentally retained.<\/p>\n
As such, the real message here is to make sure you get enough sleep before any important task, for this reason among many others! So make sure you get some shut-eye before that test!<\/p>\n
For further reading focused on attention and sleep: http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/2014\/05\/04\/can-you-sleep-your-way-to-becoming-mozart\/<\/a><\/p>\n
\nhttp:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/2014\/05\/10\/can-loving-kindness-meditation-increase-positive-affect-and-attentional-control\/<\/a><\/p>\n