Effects of sleep restriction on social contagion of emotional memory

Abstract

The amount of sleep that one gets affects their emotional perception, emotional learning and memory, and interactions with others. The current research study examines the effects of sleep restriction on the social contagion of emotional memory. Participants first came to the lab to complete a series of questionnaires to determine eligibility, collect demographics, and to be trained on how to use the sleep watches and sleep diaries for a week of sleep monitoring. Participants completed one week of sleep monitoring using sleep diaries and actigraphy, and then were randomly assigned to either one night of either adequate sleep (8h) or restricted sleep (4h) before returning to the lab. Then, participants learned and recalled a series of emotional images alongside a confederate who recalled both correct and incorrect images. On later individual recall tests, participants were equally likely to incorporate the negative, positive, and neutral images suggested by the confederate, but on recognition tests, social contagion effects were larger for the negative and positive images. Additionally, our findings support a negativity bias in memory on both recall and recognition tests. There was no significant effect of sleep restriction. The results of this study are consistent with source monitoring theories of memory and have important implications for understanding how sleep influences social emotional memory.