**Project Summary** ------------------- ---------- The overarching project will primarily focus on investigating the influence that sleep length and quality (both immediate and habitual) have on attention, memory and executive function in the general population. This project will utilise online experiments (through Inquisit) and online surveys (through Qualtrics) as objective measures of these constructs. We are interested in how this relationship varies across the lifespan, so we will be encouraging students to recruit across a broad age range. Background ---------- The quality of sleep, both over the long and short terms, can have profound effects on everyday functions including cognition, attention and memory (Alhola & Polo-Kantola, 2007). This overarching project will primarily focus on investigating the influence that sleep length and quality (both immediate and habitual) have on attention and memory in the general population. Aims ---- This project will use online experiments as well as surveys to objectively measures of these constructs. We will be conducting these through an online portals Inquisit and Qualtrics. We are also interested in how this relationship varies across the lifespan, so we will be recruiting across a broad age range. Research Design --------------- Participants will complete a set of online surveys: the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PQSI; Buysse et al., 1989), a shortened version of the Alcohol Use and Dependence test (AUDIT; Lundin et al., 2015), the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21; Henry & Crawford, 2005), the Autism Spectrum Questionnaire (ASQ-21; Baron-Cohen et al., 2001), the Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire (Horne & Ostberg, 1976), measures of dream recall (Schredl, Berres, Klingauf, Schellhaas & Goritz, 2014), some questions about video game usage, and some demographic questions, followed by a number of online tasks: the psychomotor vigilance task (PVT-B; Basner, Mollicone, & Dinges, 2011), the N-Back Task (Jaeggi et al., 2010), the Finger-Tapping Task (Casagrande et al. 1997), and the Task-Switching Paradigm (Jersild, 1927). All of these measures have been selected as being quite brief to collect. Broadly, the experimental results (reaction time on the Psychomotor Vigilance Task, performance on short-term memory in the N-Back task, number of taps per minute in the Speeded Tapping task) will serve as outcome variables, while the survey variables (sleep quality, mood, computer game use, autism spectrum characteristics, alcohol consumption) will serve as predictor variables in most of the studies, with the aim of exploring the effects of these predictors on the basic physiological and brain processes presumed to underlie performance on these tasks. Each student will officially preregister their hypotheses and analysis plan on the website aspredicted.org, providing accountability and ensuring sound scientific practice. DOI links to these preregistrations will be available on request. Potential Value and Significance of Research -------------------------------------------- This would be the first major study in the area of sleep research to combine both standardised survey measures and online experiments. The area of online experimental research is rapidly expanding and offers many exciting possibilities, particularly for cognitive and reaction time measures that have been traditionally collected in the lab. The ability to collect large samples in this manner gives the ability to answer questions which are relevant to a broad range of individuals in society. References ---------- Alhola, P., & Polo-Kantola, P. (2007). Sleep deprivation: Impact on cognitive performance. Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment, 3(5), 553-567. Baron-Cohen, S., Wheelwright, S., Skinner, R., Martin, J., & Clubley, E. (2001). The autism-spectrum quotient (AQ): Evidence from Asperger syndrome/high-functioning autism, males and females, scientists and mathematicians. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 31(1), 5-17. Basner, M., Mollicone, D., & Dinges, D. F. (2011). Validity and Sensitivity of a Brief Psychomotor Vigilance Test (PVT-B) to Total and Partial Sleep Deprivation. Acta Astronautica, 69(11-12), 949–959. Buysse, D. J., Reynolds, C. F., 3rd, Monk, T. H., Berman, S. R., & Kupfer, D. J. (1989). The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index: a new instrument for psychiatric practice and research. Psychiatry Research, 28(2), 193–213. Casagrande, M., De Gennaro, L., Violani, C., Braibanti, P., & Bertini, M. (1997). A finger-tapping task and a reaction time task as behavioral measures of the transition from wakefulness to sleep: which task interferes less with the sleep onset process. Sleep, 20(4), 301–312. Henry, J. D., & Crawford, J. R. (2005). The short-form version of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS-21): construct validity and normative data in a large non-clinical sample. The British Journal of Clinical Psychology / the British Psychological Society, 44(Pt 2), 227–239. Horne, J. A., & Ostberg, O. (1976). A self-assessment questionnaire to determine morningness-eveningness in human circadian rhythms. International Journal of Chronobiology, 4(2), 97–110. Jaeggi, S.M., Buschkuehl, M., Perrig, W.J., & Meier, B. (2010). The concurrent validity of the N-back task as a working memory measure. Memory, 18, 394–412 Jersild, A.T. (1927). Mental set and shift. Archives of Psychology, 89, 5–82. Lundin, A., Hallgren, M., Balliu, N., & Forsell, Y. (2015). The use of alcohol use disorders identification test (AUDIT) in detecting alcohol use disorder and risk drinking in the general population: validation of AUDIT using schedules for clinical assessment in neuropsychiatry. Alcoholism, Clinical and Experimental Research, 39(1), 158–165. Schredl, M., Berres, S., Klingauf, A., Schellhaas, S., & S. Göritz, A. (2014). The Mannheim Dream questionnaire (MADRE): Retest reliability, age and gender effects. International Journal of Dream Research, 7(2), 141-147. doi:10.11588/ijodr.2014.2.16675