A substantial body of research demonstrates the importance of sleep for emotional processing and learning as well as the association between sleep problems and heightened anxiety. However, there is currently no research exploring the impact of sleepiness on vicariously learned fear responses. Experiment 1 (N = 38) first demonstrated no effect of trait or state sleepiness on children’s (7–11 years of age) subjective ratings of fear. Experiment 2 (N = 42) and Experiment 3 (N = 46) used an established vicarious learning paradigm to demonstrate that trait sleepiness facilitated vicariously acquired avoidance preferences for animals paired with fearful faces (fear-paired animals), whereas state sleepiness facilitated children’s fear cognitions and attentional bias toward fear-paired animals. This study is the first to demonstrate the role of state and trait sleepiness in moderating vicarious fear learning in children.

大量研究表明睡眠对于情绪处理和学习的重要性，以及睡眠问题与焦虑加剧之间的关联。然而，目前还没有研究探讨嗜睡对间接习得的恐惧反应的影响。实验 1 ( N  = 38) 首先证明特征或状态嗜睡对儿童（7-11 岁）的主观恐惧评分没有影响。实验 2 ( N  = 42) 和实验 3 ( N = 46) 使用既定的替代学习范式来证明，特质嗜睡促进了对与恐惧面孔配对的动物（恐惧配对动物）的替代性获得回避偏好，而状态嗜睡促进了儿童的恐惧认知和对恐惧配对动物的注意力偏见。这项研究首次证明了状态和特质嗜睡在调节儿童替代性恐惧学习中的作用。