Acute sleep loss may alter the way we see others

Date:
May 3, 2022
Source:
Uppsala University
Summary:
A new study 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.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
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. The findings are published in the
scientific journal Nature and Science of Sleep.


========================================================================== 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.

"Our participants were young adults. Thus, we do not know whether our
results are generalisable to other age groups. Moreover, we do not know
if similar results would be seen among those suffering from chronic
sleep loss," says Lieve van Egmond.


========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Uppsala_University. Note: Content
may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Lieve T van Egmond, Elisa MS Meth, Shervin Bukhari, Joachim
Engstro"m,
Maria Ilemosoglou, Jasmin Annica Keller, Shiyang Zhou, Helgi B
Schio"th, Christian Benedict. How Sleep-Deprived People See and
Evaluate Others' Faces: An Experimental Study. Nature and Science
of Sleep, 2022; Volume 14: 867 DOI: 10.2147/NSS.S360433 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/05/220503102900.htm

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