In Your Face – This Ability Is Significantly Compromised When You’re Tired

We report on sleep a lot because current research is expanding our knowledge of just how important sleep is.  Not getting enough sleep can really leave you at a disadvantage in some important situations.

For example, University of Arizona researchers have learned that sleep deprivation can lessen your ability to recognize facial expressions.

We make decisions on how we think we are playing to a crowd group or individual and the feedback of facial response is important in determining what or how you do or say next.  If you’re tired, you may misread the signs.

50+ participants were shown photos of the same male face expressing varying degrees of fear, happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, and disgust.

The interesting discovery was that participants who were deprived of sleep for just one night had a harder time identifying the facial expressions of happiness or sadness compared to when they were rested.  (UPI)