Are subjective sleepiness and sleep quality related to prospective memory?

Abstract

Event-based prospective memory (PM) involves carrying out intentions when specific events occur and is ubiquitous in everyday life. It consists of a prospective component (remembering that something must be done) and a retrospective component (remembering what must be done and when). Subjective sleep-related variables may be related to PM performance and an attention-demanding prospective component. In two studies, the relationship of subjective sleepiness and subjective sleep quality with both PM components was investigated with a laboratory PM task and separation of its components via Bayesian multinomial processing tree modeling. In Study 1, neither component of PM was related to naturally occurring subjective sleepiness or sleep quality. In Study 2, sleepiness was experimentally increased by placing some participants in a supine body posture. Testing participants in upright vs. supine posture affected neither PM component. However, body posture moderated the relationship between subjective sleep quality and the prospective component: In supine posture, subjective sleep quality tended to be more positively related to the prospective component. Overall, neither subjective sleepiness nor subjective sleep quality alone was related to PM.

Prospective Memory, Sleep, and Age

“…On the contrary, they observed a sleep-facilitating effect on spontaneous retrieval processes. This pattern of results points out that the topic of the relationship between sleep and PM is still under discussion, as recently demonstrated by Böhm and colleagues [21], who failed to detect a significant association between sleep and PM. Within the research agenda of their study, Leong et al [20] wrote that "while slow-wave sleep plays a key role in PM in young adults, this relationship may change with age.…”

Sleep and Prospective Memory: A Retrospective Study in Different Clinical Populations

“…Moreover, it is still not currently known which of the three sleep pillars could be more strongly associated with PM. Overall, this pattern of results highlights the fact that the role of low sleep quality in the impairment of PM performance is still a matter of debate, as also shown by a recent study [15] that failed to find a significant association between sleep and PM and which is not included in the above-mentioned systematic review and meta-analysis [14]. Confirming that the role of low sleep quality in the impairment of PM should still be clarified, a recent study of our research group [16] showed, in a large healthy lifespan sample, that sleep quality, quantity, and timing do not play a predictive role in PM performance contrary to aging that was per se associated with its worsening.…”

“…The main aim of the present study was to explore the potential role of sleep quality and amount in PM, which is currently still a matter of debate [ 14 , 15 , 16 ]. To this end, we carried out a retrospective naturalistic study in which we examined different clinical populations with a primary sleep disorder or comorbid low sleep quality.…”

Nighttime sleep benefits the prospective component of prospective memory

“…The model was validated for nonfocal PM tasks (Horn et al, 2011 ; Rummel et al, 2011 ; Smith & Bayen, 2004 ) and has been applied frequently (Arnold & Bayen, 2019 ; Arnold, Bayen, & Böhm, 2015 ; Arnold, Bayen, & Smith, 2015 ; Böhm et al, 2020a ; Pavawalla et al, 2012 ; Schnitzspahn et al, 2012 ; Smith et al, 2010 ; Smith et al, 2014 ; Smith & Bayen, 2005 , 2006 ; Walter & Bayen, 2016 ; Wesslein et al, 2014 ; Zhang et al, 2017 ).…”

“…In one of our previous studies (Böhm et al, 2020a), participants performed a PM task embedded in an ongoing color-matching task in three consecutive blocks, each with new PM target words. In unpublished analyses of these data (Böhm et al, 2020b), we found that even three consecutive blocks of PM tasks did not induce interference effects. On the contrary, PM performance was even slightly better on the later PM blocks.…”