University of California researchers claim that those who are deprived of sleep are more at risk for remembering false details than people who are not.
The new study involved 104 young adult subjects who were divided into four groups. Two of the groups looked at crime scene photos when they arrived while the other two groups saw the pictures the following morning. Half of these participants slept while half of them stayed awake all night. All subjects were tested on how well they remembered the details of the pictures the next morning.
"Over the years I noticed that whenever I had a bad night's sleep, my perception and memory seemed to get fuzzy until I had a good recovery sleep," psychological scientist Steven Frenda explained. "I was surprised to find that there were so few empirical studies connecting sleep deprivation with memory distortion in an eyewitness context."
The research team found that five hours or less of sleep a night was related to false memory formation. The participants who saw the pictures before they stayed up all night "were no more susceptible to false memories than the students who'd been allowed to sleep." However, Frenda and his colleagues wanted to study this further.
The study's second part had subjects read statements that conflicted what the pictures really showed. For example, the description may read that the thief kept the stolen wallet inside the pocket of his pants when the picture actually showed him putting the wallet inside his jacket.
Frenda and his team found that those participants who did not sleep for all the stages of the study were more likely to remember and report erroneous details from the statements as opposed to the real facts in the pictures.
Researchers said that previous studies suggest on average, people are now sleeping fewer hours and chronic sleep deprivation is increasing. Their findings could have legal implications on the sleep-deprived eyewitnesses' reliability. However, they said that before they can show these findings to law enforcers and recommend manners to ensure the accuracy of memories, further investigation is needed and it is already in process.
