We aimed to investigate whether self-monitoring of performance is altered during 60 h of total sleep deprivation, following 2 nights of recovery sleep, and by task difficulty and/or subjective sleepiness. Forty adults (22 females, aged 19-39 years) underwent a 5-day protocol, with a well-rested day, 66 h total sleep deprivation (last test session at 60 h), and 2 nights of 8 h recovery sleep. An arithmetic task (MATH) with three difficulty levels assessed working memory. The Psychomotor Vigilance Task assessed sustained attention. Arithmetic accuracy and Psychomotor Vigilance Task median reaction time measured objective performance. Subjective performance was measured with self-reported accuracy and speed. Objective-subjective differences assessed self-monitoring ability. The performance on both tasks declined during total sleep deprivation and improved following recovery. During total sleep deprivation, participants accurately self-monitored performance on the Psychomotor Vigilance Task; however, they overestimated cognitive deficits on MATH, self-reporting performance as worse than actually observed. Following recovery, participants overestimated the extent of performance improvement on the Psychomotor Vigilance Task. Task difficulty influenced self-monitoring ability, with greater overestimation of performance deficits during total sleep deprivation as difficulty increased. Subjective sleepiness predicted subjective performance ratings at several time points, only for the Psychomotor Vigilance Task. The ability to self-monitor performance was impaired during total sleep deprivation for working memory and after recovery sleep for the Psychomotor Vigilance Task, but was otherwise accurate. The development of self-monitoring strategies, assessing both subjective perceptions of performance and subjective sleepiness, within operational contexts may help reduce the consequences of sleep-related impairments.

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Patients with insomnia frequently report disturbing, or being disturbed by, their bedpartner. We aimed to (1) characterize how individuals with insomnia and their bedpartners influence each other’s sleep and (2) identify characteristics predicting vulnerability to wake transmission. Fifty-two couples (aged 19–82 years), where one individual was diagnosed with insomnia, participated. Sleep/wake patterns were monitored via actigraphy and sleep diaries for seven nights. Minute-by-minute sleep and wake concordance (simultaneous sleep/wake epochs), number of wake transmissions received (awakenings immediately preceded by wakefulness in the bedpartner), percent wake transmissions received (percentage of total awakenings that were transmitted), and percent of bedpartner’s wake minutes resistant to transmission (ability to sleep through bedpartner wakefulness) were calculated. Mixed-effects modeling assessed within-couple bedtime and chronotype differences as predictors of dyadic sleep. We described rates of sleep concordance (MPatient = 63.8%, MPartner = 65.6%), wake concordance (MPatient = 6.6%, MPartner = 6.6%), total transmissions received (MPatient = 5.5, MPartner = 6.9 per night), percent transmissions received (MPatient = 18.5%, MPartner = 23.4% of total awakenings), and percent minutes resistant (MPatient = 56.4%, MPartner = 58.6% of bedpartner’s wake time). Partners received wake transmissions at 1.25 times the rate of patients. Percent transmissions received was increased in couples with concordant bedtimes and individuals with later chronotype than their bedpartner. Patterns of chronotype and bedtime order predicting percent minutes resistant to transmission differed across the length of the rest interval. Transmission provides a novel characterization of how bedpartners influence sleep and provide insight into mechanisms of insomnia generation and maintenance. Understanding modifiable risk factors may provide ways to personalize insomnia treatments. Clinical Trial Researching Effective Sleep Treatments (Project REST), ANZCTR Registration: ACTRN12616000586415

Differences were observed in the performance of younger and older adults on component processes of WM following TSD. This suggests that TSD can have differential effects on each component process when younger and older adults are compared, in both verbal and visuospatial tasks. Understanding this profile of changes is important for the development of possible compensatory strategies or interventions and the differentiation of clinical and healthy populations.

Controversy exists as to whether self-reported sleep quality declines with age, despite changes in sleep being accepted as part of normal aging. This study sought to investigate age-related differences in self-reported sleep quality, after controlling for conditions that are common with age, such as psychological symptoms and increased risk of sleep-disordered breathing (SDB). The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) was administered to a sample of 582 community adults (aged 18-89 years), and the association between age and 3 factors of the PSQI (sleep efficiency, perceived sleep quality, and daily disturbance), and global scores, was examined controlling for depression, anxiety, stress, gender, and SDB risk. Results indicate that (a) before controlling for covariates, there was no significant relation between age and all indexes of self-reported sleep quality, with the exception of sleep efficiency. However, once depression, gender, and SDB risk were controlled for, a significant, yet small, relation was revealed between older age and poorer global sleep quality; (b) there was no association between age and perceived sleep quality or daily disturbances before or after controlling for relevant covariates; and (c) depression, gender, and SDB risk were significant predictors of poorer sleep quality across the indexes but, in general, did not have a marked impact on the relation between age and sleep quality. In conclusion, results suggest that sleep problems are common across the lifespan, and that there were modest age-related differences in self-reported sleep quality, which were not due to depressed mood, gender, or risk of SDB.