Juliette Dutton

Document Type

Honors Thesis

Major

Psychology

Advisor(s)

Fayeza Ahmed

Committee Members

Jordan LaBouff, Benjamin Guenther, Michael Robbins

Graduation Year

May, 2025

Publication Date

2025

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore what associations can be made within the scope of how sleep quality is related to cognitive function such as working memory, processing speed, visual-spatial organization, and verbal memory. This study is an addition to the present publications from the Maine-Syracuse Longitudinal Study (MSLS) for the greater benefit of understanding the importance of sleep on cognitive health. Using data collected from 2001-2005 in the MSLS dataset, multiple hierarchical regressions were conducted to find associations between sleep quality, and sleep apnea, and cognitive function. Participant data excluded individuals under the age of 40 and cases of dementia. Data collected from a self-report sleep disturbance questionnaire was used to run statistical analyses on SPSS with 21 cognitive function measures. The results indicate that there are significant associations between the quality of sleep and cognitive function, but no significant findings on sleep apnea and cognitive function. Implications of these findings indicate that sleep disturbance and poor quality sleep have negative outcomes for certain cognitive functions such as working memory, processing speed, visual-spatial organization, and verbal memory, while sleep apnea does not have negative outcomes for cognitive function.

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