The relationship between sleep patterns and attention levels

Abstract

Fifty-nine adults slept five nights with an Actigraph and answered two questionnaires related to sleeping quality and morningness/eveningness preferences. Next they performed a computerized attention task (the mathematics continuous performance test (MATH-CPT)) to assess various measures of attention. Results showed significant correlations between six attention variables and two measures of sleep assessed by the Actigraph. Linear regression with sleep variables as independent variables, and measures of the computerized test as dependent variables showed that sleep measures explained 30% of the variance of the score in the “final attention formula” of the test, and 27% of the “rate of response.”

Keywords:

• Sleep patterns
• Sleep efficiency
• Attention
• Continuous performance test
• Actigraph

I would like to thank Professor Orna Tzischinsky for her advice and assistance in the writing of this paper.

Notes

1. ¹A research version of the MATH-CPT is available without charge from the author.