Wearing an Eye Mask During Overnight Sleep Improves Episodic Learning and Alertness

Abstract

Ambient light can influence sleep structure and timing. We explored how wearing an eye-mask to block light during overnight sleep impacts on memory and alertness, changes that could benefit everyday tasks like studying or driving. In Experiment 1, ninety-four 18–35-year-olds wore an eye-mask while they slept every night for a week and underwent a control condition in which light was not blocked for another week. Five habituation nights were followed by a cognitive battery on the sixth and seventh days. This revealed superior episodic encoding and an improvement on alertness when using the mask. In Experiment 2, thirty-five 18–35-year-olds used a wearable device to monitor sleep with and without the mask. This replicated the encoding benefit and showed that it was predicted by time spent in slow wave sleep. Our findings suggest that wearing an eye-mask during overnight sleep can improve episodic encoding and alertness the next day.

Methodologies and Wearable Devices to Monitor Biophysical Parameters Related to Sleep Dysfunctions: An Overview

“…The authors integrated into a traditional eye mask, kept in place merely by the conventional elastic strap, a sensing electrode made by conductive graphene-based textiles from nylon, simply sewing nylon fabric into the unmodified mask using non-conductive polyester thread. Because the device is similar to a classic sleep mask, the device is comfortable and discreet [40]. The mask uses only two EOG channels to classify sleep: the first includes two horizontal electrodes on either side of the eyes, and the second consists of a reference electrode on the forehead.…”