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Evidence was sought of an attentional bias toward a highly representative object of the bedroom environment in good, moderate, and poor (primary insomnia) sleepers. Using a flicker paradigm for inducing change blindness, the authors briefly presented a single scene comprising a group of bedroom environment and neutral objects to participants and then briefly replaced this scene with an identical scene containing a change made to either a bedroom environment or a neutral object. In a 3 x 2 entirely between-participants design, change-detection latencies revealed a sleep-related attentional bias in poor sleepers but not in good sleepers. A possible bias in moderate sleepers was also revealed. It is suggested that attentional bias has a role in the perpetuation and possibly precipitation of primary insomnia.

Original publication

DOI

10.1037/0021-843X.114.2.249

Type

Journal article

Journal

J Abnorm Psychol

Publication Date

05/2005

Volume

114

Pages

249 - 258

Keywords

Anxiety, Attention, Housing, Humans, Orientation, Sleep, Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders, Visual Perception