Further Evidence of the Zero-Association Between Symptoms of Insomnia and Facial Emotion Recognition—Results From a Sample of Adults in Their Late 30s

Abstract

Background: Restoring sleep is associated with favorable cognitive, emotional, and behavioral adaptations. As regards the association between sleep duration and facial emotion recognition (FER), results are conflicting, and as regards the association between symptoms of insomnia and FER, no study has been performed so far. Accordingly, the aim of the present study was to investigate whether subjective sleep was associated with FER, along with perceived stress and mental toughness.Method: A total of 201 police officers (mean age = 38.5 years, 64.2% males) took part in the present cross-sectional study. They completed questionnaires covering socio-demographic data, subjective symptoms of insomnia, perceived stress, and mental toughness. Further, they underwent a computerized FER test, consisting of facial emotion labeling and facial emotion matching.Results: Performance of FER (accuracy, speed) was unrelated to subjective symptoms of insomnia. Lower FER was associated with higher age, but not to perceived stress or mental toughness. No gender differences were observed. Higher symptoms of insomnia were associated with higher stress scores and lower scores of mental toughness.Conclusions: The pattern of results suggests that FER was not associated with symptoms of insomnia, understood as a proxy of sleep quality, among adults. This observation replicates those studies showing a zero-association between sleep and FER.

Perceptual Differences in Emotionally Ambiguous Neutral Faces Among Individuals Displaying Clinically Significant Insomnia Symptoms

“…Similar, albeit mixed outcomes have been observed in the insomnia population (Akram, Sharman et al, 2018;Brand et al, 2019;Cr€ onlein et al, 2016;Kyle et al, 2014;J. Zhang et al, 2019).…”

“…Zhang et al., 2019). In contrast, among police officers completing computerized measures of emotional labeling and matching of faces, Brand et al. (2019) failed to evidence any relationships between insomnia symptoms and performance outcomes (accuracy and speed).…”

“…Zhang et al, 2019). In contrast, among police officers completing computerized measures of emotional labeling and matching of faces, Brand et al (2019) failed to evidence any relationships between insomnia symptoms and performance outcomes (accuracy and speed). Likewise, in a series of large-scale studies by Holding et al (2017), the duration and quality of sleep and experience of total sleep deprivation failed to predict overall speed and accuracy when categorizing facially expressed emotions.…”

The effect of sleep continuity disruption on multimodal emotion processing and regulation: a laboratory-based, randomized, controlled experiment in good sleepers

“…Nevertheless, a recent meta-analysis (Tomaso, Johnson et al 2020) found only small effects of sleep deprivation on emotion processing (g = -0.11) and adaptive emotion regulation (g=-0.32), whereas effects of self-report positive (g = -0.94) and negative mood (g=0.45) were greater indicating the effects of insufficient sleep on objective measures of emotion might not be as strong as previously believed, consistent with the significant (subjective mood) and non-significant effect sizes (emotion processing) we report. Moreover, recent large-scale studies (n=291 (Holding, Laukka et al 2017), n=201(Brand, Schilling et al 2019)) also showed no effect of sleep disruption (Holding, Laukka et al 2017, Gerhardsson, Åkerstedt et al 2019, Tamm, Schwarz et al 2020), total sleep time (Holding, Laukka et al 2017), subjective sleep quality (Holding, Laukka et al 2017), nor insomnia symptom severity (Brand, Schilling et al 2019) (ISI scores) on emotional processing. Our findings suggest that experimentally induced sleep fragmentation over one night also has limited effect on emotional processing.…”

Facial Emotion Recognition and Executive Functions in Insomnia Disorder: An Exploratory Study

“…Some results have shown that ID is associated with a lower accuracy of facial emotion recognition and a reduced rating of emotion intensity for face expressions, as compared to control groups (Kyle et al, 2014;Crönlein et al, 2016). On the other hand, some studies have not found this association between insomnia or sleep disorders and recognition of facial emotions, suggesting that the data are inconclusive (Sheth et al, 2009;Almondes et al, 2016b;Brand et al, 2016Brand et al, , 2019.…”