Lack of sleep is one of the most damaging lifestyle factors. Sleep deprivation has been scientifically proven to be associated with diabetes and overweight, psychosis and depression, skin aging, decreased sex drive and memory impairment. It seems that there is nothing more to add to this long list – but no. It turned out that lack of sleep is also fraught with a distortion of memories.
Lack of sleep, people not only remember badly what happened, but they can also “remember” what did not happen at all. The research report was published in the July issue of the journal Psychological Science*.
A group of psychologists led by Steven J. Frenda from the University of California at Irvine and the University of Michigan (USA) recruited 104 young people to participate in the experiment and divided them into four groups.
Two groups were shown photos of the crime late at night, after which one group was sent to bed, while the other had to stay awake all night. The other two groups were treated the same way, but the pictures were shown in the morning.
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Then everyone was allowed to read the testimony – the description of the crime in them was at odds with what people saw in the photo. For example, in one, a witness claimed that the thief put the stolen wallet in his pants pocket, while the photo shows him putting the wallet in his jacket pocket.
After that, everyone was asked to remember what was in the photo. It turned out that the participants who looked at the photos after a sleepless night were more likely than others to be mistaken, believing that the picture coincided with the witness’s story. In other words, they have formed false memories. Those who first studied the photo, and then did not sleep, were no more mistaken than the lucky ones from the two control groups who slept well.
The authors of the study believe that their discovery may be important not only for psychologists and doctors, but also for lawyers: indeed, how reliable can the testimony of a witness of a real crime be considered if he, without sleeping, saw something important? Especially when you consider that, according to recent studies, people are getting less sleep on average and chronic sleep deprivation is on the rise.
* Psychological Science, июль 2014. pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/07/15/0956797614534694.abstract