Neuroscience News: Acute Sleep Loss May Alter the Way We See Others
“A new study from Uppsala University shows that young adults when sleep-deprived evaluate angry faces as less trustworthy and healthy-looking. Furthermore, neutral and fearful faces appear less attractive following sleep loss.”
“Using eye-tracking, a sensor technology that can detect what a person is looking at in real time, researchers from Uppsala University in Sweden performed an experiment on 45 young men and women to examine how acute sleep loss affects the way humans explore and evaluate happy, fearful, angry and neutral faces. The participants spent one night with no sleep at all and one night with an eight-hour sleep opportunity. Their eye movements were measured in the mornings following both nights.”
““The finding that sleep-deprived subjects in our experiment rated angry faces as less trustworthy and healthy-looking and neutral and fearful faces as less attractive indicates that sleep loss is associated with more negative social impressions of others. This could result in less motivation to interact socially,” says senior author Christian Benedict, Associate Professor of Neuroscience.”
“Facial expressions are crucial for social interactions. Thus, spending less time fixating on faces after acute sleep loss may come along with several problems for social interactions, eg, inaccurate and delayed judgment of the emotional state of others. In addition, more negative social impressions of others may lead to social withdrawal in sleep-deprived humans.”
Read the full article here.
#Sleep #Perception #Emotions
My Take:
Admittedly, the premise and conclusion of this article is never something that I’ve noticed (or tried to notice) in myself. However, it goes without saying that none of us are even close to 100% when we are sleep deprived, so I am not surprised by the results of this article at all.
And as a question for you all:
In what ways do you notice sleep deprivation affecting you–especially with regard to socializing with others?
@sereneSunset26
I did not know that sleep deprivation is associated with less motivation to interact socially. I have not noticed this in myself or others, so it was very interesting for me to read about this study.
@globalBraid3744
Yeah, I'm totally in the boat with you in that regard. I mean, for me, sometimes when I'm sleep-deprived I just don't have the energy to socialize, so I can definitely get it on that front. It's something that I think I'll add to my mindfulness bag, though, the next time I'm out and about (assuming I'm sleep-deprived, haha).
@sereneSunset26
Now that you mentioned it - when I am tired I do not talk much and I get irritated quickly. I was not fully aware of it until now.
@globalBraid3744
Yay for even more mindfulness, yeah? 😂
@sereneSunset26
Great that I got a new insight from our discussion!
@globalBraid3744
Honestly? Same here. :)
@sereneSunset26 Nice article! When I'm sleep-deprived, I tend to become very antisocial. I feel drained and have no energy for socializing.
@comfortableNight4463
I can most definitely understand that. My personality in terms of how I physically feel (which is largely predicated on the quality of my sleep) can vacillate between the entire spectrum of introversion and extroversion.
Naturally, when I'm close to whatever passes for 100% for me, I do lean more towards extroversion.
