One must process others’ facial affect proficiently to facilitate social functioning, and both social functioning and processing of facial affect can be impaired in sleep-deficient states. Based on mood-salience, decreased positive affect and increased negative affect experienced from sleep deficits or from depression might differentially modulate attentional responses to others’ positive and negative facial expressions. The present study examined this possibility by assessing college students’ subjective sleep–wake experience and their P3 event-related potentials responses, which indicate attention allocation. Fifty-five participants completed the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), assessments of current and past depressive symptoms, and a modified oddball task including affective facial expression stimuli. Factor analysis was conducted on PSQI data, and structural equation models were estimated to examine associations between PSQI latent factors and oddball P3 amplitude, controlling for current and past depressive symptomatology. Results indicated that one of the two identified PSQI factors (dysfunctional sleep insufficiency) was negatively associated with P3 amplitude in response to happy facial stimuli, while PSQI factor associations with sad and neutral stimuli were non-significant. Findings suggest that particular self-reported sleep–wake problems (dynamic interplay of sleep duration, sleep quality, and psychosocial functioning) can be related to decreased elaborated attention towards others’ positive facial expressions, potentially a marker of decreased inclination towards social rewards. This pattern may be particularly relevant in college, a context that can present important social opportunities and reinforce problematic sleep habits. Future longitudinal research that includes assessments of social functioning and diverse samples would be beneficial.

一个人必须熟练地处理他人的面部情感以促进社交功能，并且在睡眠不足状态下社交功能和面部情感处理都可能受到损害。基于情绪显着性，睡眠不足或抑郁引起的正面影响减少和负面影响增加，可能会差异化注意力对他人正面和负面面部表情的反应。本研究通过评估大学生的主观睡眠觉醒体验以及他们与P3事件相关的电位反应（表明注意力分配）来检验这种可能性。55名参与者完成了匹兹堡睡眠质量指数（PSQI），评估了当前和过去的抑郁症状，并修改了奇数球任务，其中包括情感面部表情刺激。对PSQI数据进行因子分析，并估计结构方程模型，以检查PSQI潜在因子与奇数球P3幅度之间的关联，以控制当前和过去的抑郁症状。结果表明，两个已识别的PSQI因子之一（功能障碍性睡眠不足）与P3振幅对面部快乐刺激的反应呈负相关，而与悲伤和中性刺激相关的PSQI因子则无统计学意义。研究结果表明，特定的自我报告的睡眠-觉醒问题（睡眠持续时间，睡眠质量和社会心理功能的动态相互作用）可能与对他人的积极面部表情的细致关注减少有关，这可能是社会奖励倾向降低的标志。这种模式在大学里可能特别重要，可以提供重要社交机会并增强有问题的睡眠习惯的环境。未来的纵向研究，包括对社会功能评估和各种样本的评估，将是有益的。