The effects of sleep deprivation on information-integration categorization performance.
BACKGROUND
Sleep deprivation is a serious problem facing individuals in many critical societal roles. One of the most ubiquitous tasks facing individuals is categorization. Sleep deprivation is known to affect rule-based categorization in the classic Wisconsin Card Sorting Task, but, to date, information-integration categorization has not been examined.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate the effects of sleep deprivation on information-integration category learning.


METHODS
Participants performed an information-integration categorization task twice, separated by a 24-hour period, with or without sleep between testing sessions.


METHODS
Twenty-one West Point cadets participated in the sleep-deprivation group and 28 West Point cadets participated in a control group.


RESULTS
Sleep deprivation led to an overall performance deficit during the second testing session-that is, whereas participants allowed to sleep showed a significant performance increase during the second testing session, sleepless participants showed a small (but nonsignificant) performance decline during the second testing session. Model-based analyses indicated that a major contributor to the sleep-deprivation effect was the poor second-session performance of a subgroup of sleep-deprived participants who shifted from optimal information-integration strategies at the end of the first session to less-optimal rule-based strategies at the start of the second session. Sleep-deprived participants who used information-integration strategies in both sessions showed no drop in performance in the second session, mirroring the behavior of control participants.


CONCLUSIONS
The findings suggest that the neural systems underlying information-integration strategies are not strongly affected by sleep deprivation but, rather, that the use of an information-integration strategy in a task may require active inhibition of rule-based strategies, with this inhibitory process being vulnerable to the effects of sleep deprivation.
Maddox
W Todd
WT
Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, 78712, USA. maddox@psy.utexas.edu
Glass
Brian D
BD
Wolosin
Sasha M
SM
Savarie
Zachary R
ZR
Bowen
Christopher
C
Matthews
Michael D
MD
Schnyer
David M
DM
D000328:Adult; D001244:Association; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology; D011581:Psychological Tests; D012153:Retention, Psychology / Q000502:physiology; D012892:Sleep Deprivation / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology*; D013850:Thinking / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult