Abstract
The dorsal and ventral aspects of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) are the two regions most consistently recruited in divergent thinking tasks. Given that frontal tasks have been shown to be vulnerable to sleep loss, we explored the impact of a single night of sleep deprivation on fluency (i.e., number of generated responses) and PFC function during divergent thinking. Participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning twice while engaged in the Alternate Uses Task (AUT) – once following a single night of sleep deprivation and once following a night of normal sleep. They also wore wrist activity monitors, which enabled us to quantify daily sleep and model cognitive effectiveness. The intervention was effective, producing greater levels of fatigue and sleepiness. Modeled cognitive effectiveness and fluency were impaired following sleep deprivation, and sleep deprivation was associated with greater activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) during AUT. The results suggest that an intervention known to temporarily compromise frontal function can impair fluency, and that this effect is instantiated in the form of an increased hemodynamic response in the left IFG.
Highlights
Divergent thinking includes the cluster of “abilities concerned with the ready flow of ideas and with readiness to change direction or to modify information” (Guilford, 1967, p. 139)
MANIPULATION CHECKS We first ascertained the effectiveness of our sleep deprivation procedure by analyzing hourly reaction time (RT) data from Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT) and Sleepiness Scale (SSS) scores
The results demonstrated that self-rated fatigue was higher following a night of sleep deprivation than following a night of normal sleep on all subscales of Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory (MFI): general [t(12) = 4.90, p = 0.001, d = 1.81], physical [t(12) = 2.46, p = 0.030, d = 0.81], activity [t(12) = 3.15, p = 0.008, d = 0.62], motivation [t(12) = 2.58, p = 0.024, d = 0.73], and mental [t(12) = 2.38, p = 0.035, d = 0.81]6
Summary
Divergent thinking includes the cluster of “abilities concerned with the ready flow of ideas and with readiness to change direction or to modify information” (Guilford, 1967, p. 139). In a pioneering study on this topic, Horne (1988) found that going 32 h without sleep impaired most aspects of divergent thinking (i.e., fluency, originality, elaboration, and flexibility). This effect was driven not by the participants’ loss of motivation or interest in the tasks, but rather “sleep loss made them fixate on previously successful strategies when attempting solutions to the problem” A subsequent study assessed divergent thinking performance following a single night of sleep deprivation and demonstrated that it impaired flexibility in divergent thinking – a measure of the conceptual diversity of generated solutions (Wimmer et al, 1992). These early studies converged to demonstrate that shortterm sleep deprivation is detrimental for divergent thinking performance
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