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. 2014 Sep;25(9):1674-81.
doi: 10.1177/0956797614534694. Epub 2014 Jul 16.

Sleep deprivation and false memories

Steven J Frenda  1 , Lawrence Patihis  2 , Elizabeth F Loftus  2 , Holly C Lewis  3 , Kimberly M Fenn  3
Affiliations
Free article

Sleep deprivation and false memories

Steven J Frenda et al. Psychol Sci. 2014 Sep.
Free article

Abstract

Many studies have investigated factors that affect susceptibility to false memories. However, few have investigated the role of sleep deprivation in the formation of false memories, despite overwhelming evidence that sleep deprivation impairs cognitive function. We examined the relationship between self-reported sleep duration and false memories and the effect of 24 hr of total sleep deprivation on susceptibility to false memories. We found that under certain conditions, sleep deprivation can increase the risk of developing false memories. Specifically, sleep deprivation increased false memories in a misinformation task when participants were sleep deprived during event encoding, but did not have a significant effect when the deprivation occurred after event encoding. These experiments are the first to investigate the effect of sleep deprivation on susceptibility to false memories, which can have dire consequences.

Keywords: false memory; misinformation; sleep; sleep deprivation; suggestibility.

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