The Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Information-Integration Categorization Performance
W. Todd Maddox, PhD1,2; Brian D. Glass, MA1; Sasha M. Wolosin, BS1; Zachary R. Savarie3; Christopher Bowen3;
Michael D. Matthews, PhD3; David M. Schnyer, PhD1,2
1Department of Psychology and 2Institute for Neuroscience, University of Texas at Austin;
3United States Military Academy, West Point, NY
Background: Sleep deprivation is a serious problem facing individuals in many critical societal roles. One of the most ubiquitous tasks facing individuals is categorization. Sleep deprivation is known to affect rule-based categorization in the classic Wisconsin Card Sorting Task, but, to date, information-integration categorization has not been examined.
Study Objectives: To investigate the effects of sleep deprivation on information-integration category learning.
Design: Participants performed an information-integration categorization task twice, separated by a 24-hour period, with or without sleep between testing sessions.
Participants: Twenty-one West Point cadets participated in the sleep-deprivation group and 28 West Point cadets participated in a control group.
Measurements and Results: Sleep deprivation led to an overall performance deficit during the second testing session—that is, whereas participants allowed to sleep showed a significant performance increase during the second testing session, Sleepless participants showed a small (but nonsignificant) performance decline during the second testing session. Model-based analyses indicated that a major contributor to the sleep-deprivation effect was the poor second-session performance of a subgroup of sleep-deprived participants who shifted from optimal information-integration strategies at the end of the first session to less-optimal rule-based strategies at the start of the second session. Sleep-deprived participants who used information-integration strategies in both sessions showed no drop in performance in the second session, mirroring the behavior of control participants.
Conclusions: The findings suggest that the neural systems underlying information-integration strategies are not strongly affected by sleep deprivation but, rather, that the use of an information-integration strategy in a task may require active inhibition of rule-based strategies, with this inhibitory process being vulnerable to the effects of sleep deprivation.
Keywords: Category learning, procedural learning, striatum, sleep consolidation, sleep deprivation
美国的一项最新研究显示，睡眠不足易导致对信息理解、判断、处理障碍。对于那些从事高风险职业的人来说，睡眠不足可能造成严重后果。
美国得克萨斯大学的研究人员在最新一期美国期刊《睡眠》上报告说，他们选取了49名军校学员，要求这些人分别在睡眠充足及不足的情况下完成所谓的“信息整合”型任务，即凭借对已有信息的整合分析迅速作出相应决断。
结果发现，睡眠不足会降低人的信息认知能力，从而导致判断失误。当被调查对象睡眠不足时，他们完成信息整合任务的准确性会比正常情况下降低2.4%，而睡眠很充足时，准确性会比正常情况下提高4.3%。
这项研究的负责人托德-马多斯说，当士兵在特定情形下需要快速作出决断时，准确而迅速地进行信息整合至关重要。除士兵外，消防队员、警察等压力大、风险高的从业人员也同样需要良好的快速决断能力。因此研究者认为，上述研究结果有助于相关行业提高工作效率。