Background and objectives

Misperception of sleep, the underestimation of total sleep time and overestimation of sleep onset latency (SOL) relative to objective measures, is often found in people with sleep disturbances. Theories of insomnia have proposed that perceived sleeplessness triggers excessive intention and effort to sleep, ironically disturbing the normal initiation of sleep. The current study tested this specific association between (mis)perception of sleep and intrinsic motivation to think about sleep.

Methods

The sample (n = 74) covered students and community living in Munich and surrounds with ages between 18 and 30 years. We assessed the subjective and objective sleep of participants using a sleep diary and actigraphy. Participants also completed a decision-making task (the pay-per-view task), where they had to decide between thinking about sleep vs. eating. As these options were associated with a variable monetary reward, participants typically experienced a conflict between their preferred topic and the reward for their choice.

Results

Multilevel logistic regression analyses showed that participants with greater SOL misperception (i.e., longer subjective relative to objective SOL) forgo a greater reward for the opportunity to think about sleep.

Limitations

The non-clinical nature of our sample may limit the implication of the findings for clinical levels of insomnia.

Conclusions

Results support the cognitive model of insomnia, suggesting that perception of sleeplessness is associated with higher intrinsic motivation to engage in sleep-related thinking.

中文翻译：

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对睡眠的误解与思考睡眠的内在动机有关。

背景和目标

睡眠误解、总睡眠时间的低估和睡眠开始潜伏期 (SOL) 相对于客观测量的高估，经常出现在睡眠障碍患者身上。失眠理论提出，感知到的失眠会触发过度的睡眠意图和努力，具有讽刺意味的是扰乱了正常的睡眠开始。当前的研究测试了对睡眠的（错误）感知与思考睡眠的内在动机之间的这种特定关联。

方法

样本 ( n  = 74) 涵盖了居住在慕尼黑及其周边地区的 18 至 30 岁的学生和社区。我们使用睡眠日记和活动记录评估了参与者的主观和客观睡眠。参与者还完成了一项决策任务（按次付费任务），他们必须在考虑睡眠与饮食之间做出决定。由于这些选项与可变的金钱奖励相关联，参与者通常会遇到他们喜欢的主题和他们选择的奖励之间的冲突。

结果

多级逻辑回归分析表明，具有更大 SOL 误解（即主观相对于客观 SOL 更长）的参与者放弃了对思考睡眠机会的更大奖励。

限制

我们样本的非临床性质可能会限制研究结果对失眠临床水平的影响。

结论

结果支持失眠的认知模型，表明对失眠的感知与进行与睡眠相关的思考的更高内在动机有关。