“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.

"When sleep-deprived, our research subjects spent less time fixating on faces. Since facial expressions are crucial to understanding the emotional state of others, spending less time fixating on faces after acute sleep loss may increase the risk that you interpret the emotional state of others inaccurately or too late," says Lieve van Egmond, first author and PhD student in the Department of Surgical Sciences at Uppsala University.

"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.”

My Takeaways From This Article

1. In another way how our physical health affects our mental and emotional well-being, this study connects how much sleep we have to how we perceive others. This study found that when sleep-deprived, young people tended to view angry faces as less trustworthy and reliable while they also viewed neutral faces as unattractive.

2. In a connection to the real world, this could possibly explain why people are more cranky and respond in a more hostile way when confronted with anger and issues from their life. In short, sleep deprivation is like having a shorter fuse to you blowing up.

3. Sleep deprivation not only affects your physical health but it alters your perceptions and emotions in a more negative manner too. We’re more likely to see the negative in someone and more likely to have an unfavorable perception of people we see.

Full article is here!

What are your takeaways from your article? When you’re sleep deprived do you notice any changes within yourself?

#Sleep #Perception #SleepDeprivation