Cognitive performance after sleep deprivation: does personality make a difference?

The relations between personality and cognitive performance under sleep deprivation were examined in a college age (17–25 years) sample (n=28) using the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (Eysenck, H.J., & Eysenck, S.B.G., 1975), and a computerized battery of eight neuropsychological tests from the Automated Neuropsychological Assessment Metrics, version 3.11 (Kane, R.L., & Reeves, D.L., 1997, Perez, W.A., Masline, P.J., Ramsey, E.G., & Urban, K.E., 1987). The specific tasks analyzed were time estimation, immediate recall, delayed recall, match to sample, spatial processing, finger tapping, digit span, and the Stroop color-word tasks. Sleep deprivation had an overall negative effect on accuracy in the time estimation, immediate recall, delayed recall, and digit span tasks. There were also significant interactions between extraversion and sleep deprivation on accuracy in the time estimation, immediate recall, delayed recall, Stroop color-word, and finger tapping tasks. Extraverts performed worse than introverts on all of these tasks except the Stroop, on which extraverts had more variability in performance through the night. Finally, there were significant interactions between extraversion and neuroticism in predicting performance on the time estimation and the Stroop color-word tasks. The general findings were that the poorer performance of extraverts compared with introverts was even more pronounced in neurotics than stables.