the role of subjective sleep quality in cognitive performance has gained increasing attention in recent decades. In this paper, our aim was to test the relationship between subjective sleep quality and a wide range of cognitive functions in a healthy young adult sample combined across three studies. Sleep quality was assessed by the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, the Athens Insomnia Scale, and a sleep diary to capture general subjective sleep quality, and the Groningen Sleep Quality Scale to capture prior night's sleep quality. Within cognitive functions, we tested working memory, executive functions, and several sub-processes of procedural learning. To provide more reliable results, we included robust frequentist as well as Bayesian statistical analyses. Unequivocally across all analyses, we showed that there is no association between subjective sleep quality and cognitive performance in the domains of working memory, executive functions and procedural learning in healthy young adults. Our paper can contribute to a deeper understanding of subjective sleep quality and its measures, and we discuss various factors that may affect whether associations can be observed between subjective sleep quality and cognitive performance.

Background:The role of sleep in cognitive performance has gained increasing attention in neuroscience and sleep research in the recent decades, however, the relationship between subjective (self-reported) sleep quality and cognitive performance has not yet been comprehensively characterized. In this paper, our aim was to test the relationship between subjective sleep quality and a wide range of cognitive functions in healthy young adults across three studies. Sleep quality was assessed by Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, Athens Insomnia Scale, and in a subgroup (Study 2), a sleep diary to capture general subjective sleep quality, and Groningen Sleep Quality Scale to capture prior night's sleep quality. Within cognitive functions, we tested several sub-processes of procedural learning, working memory and executive functions (assessed by the Alternating Serial Reaction Time, Counting Span and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, respectively). Combined across the three studies, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and Athens Insomnia Scale were aggregated using principal component analysis, and linear mixed-effects models were used to investigate the effect of poor sleep quality on cognitive performance metrics. Additionally, in Study 2, the associations between Sleep diary and Groningen Sleep Quality Scale and cognitive performance were tested. To test the amount of evidence either for associations or no associations between subjective sleep quality and cognitive performance, we calculated Bayes Factors along with frequentist analyses. Results: Unequivocally across all analyses, we showed that there is no association between subjective sleep quality and cognitive performance in the domain of procedural learning, working memory, and executive functions. Conclusions: Our paper can contribute to a deeper understanding of subjective sleep quality and its measures, and we discuss various factors that may affect whether associations can be observed between subjective sleep quality and cognitive performance. 3 Background The role of sleep in cognitive performance has gained increasing attention in neuroscience and sleep research in the recent decades [1, 2]. Numerous experimental methods exist that can be employed for examining the association between sleep and cognitive performance. The most common approach is to compare cognitive performance of healthy participants (good sleepers) with that of patients with sleep disorders (e.g., for a recent meta-analysis on insomnia see É Fortier-Brochu, S Beaulieu-Bonneau, H Ivers and CM Morin [3]. Further insights can be gained from within-group investigations on the association between sleep parameters and cognitive performance. Sleep parameters can be evaluated based on actigraph or electroencephalograph measurements, which are time-consuming and require hardly accessible equipment. Hence, many studies tend to rely on questionnaires to assess sleep parameters and their relationship with cognitive performance [4-7]. Previous studies have shown that subjective and objective sleep parameters could...