The Effects of Mood and Anxiety Sensitivity on Attentional Engagement and Disengagement in Sleep Disturbance

Author

Kara L. Buda, The Graduate Center, City University of New YorkFollow

Date of Degree

9-2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Program

Psychology

Advisor

Evelyn Behar

Committee Members

Nicholas Sibrava

Jennifer Mundt

Jennifer Ford

Angelo DiBello

Subject Categories

Clinical Psychology | Health Psychology

Keywords

Sleep, Attentional Bias, Anxiety Sensitivity

Abstract

Insomnia is a highly prevalent, chronic disorder that is associated with adverse psychological, physical, and psychosocial outcomes. Harvey’s (2002) cognitive model of insomnia and Espie’s (2006) attention-intention-effort pathway model highlight two critical processes believed to play a role in the onset and persistence of insomnia: (a) emotional distress and physiological arousal and (b) selective attention and monitoring. However, investigations examining attentional bias in sleep disturbance have produced mixed results and have exclusively used paradigms that are limited in their ability to differentially examine the two unique components of attentional bias (i.e., facilitated engagement, impaired disengagement). Discrepant findings in the attentional bias literature may be explained by (a) the need for more nuanced measures of attentional bias and (b) the presence of moderators (i.e., anxiety sensitivity) that operate between emotional distress and physiological arousal and attentional bias processes. The current investigation examined (a) the causal effects of distress and arousal on attentional bias to sleep-related threat, (b) the nature of attentional bias in sleep disturbance by using a novel paradigm that allows for the orthogonal measurement of facilitated attentional engagement toward versus impaired attentional disengagement from sleep-related threat, (c) the degree to which anxiety sensitivity is a predictor of such attentional biases, (d) the degree to which anxiety sensitivity and attentional bias interact to predict severity of sleep disturbance.

A sample of undergraduate college students (n = 166) were identified as good and poor sleepers as per the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (Buysse et al., 1989). Participants were randomly assigned to a distress/arousal mood-inducing condition or a relaxation mood-inducing condition and then completed two attentional bias tasks composed of sleep-related threat (i.e., Attentional Response to Distal vs. Proximal Emotional Information task, Focused Attention Task). Results indicated that (a) poor sleepers remained highly attentive to body sensations and functional consequences of sleep disturbance regardless of whether they were distress/aroused or relaxed; (b) monitoring for the functional consequences of sleep disturbance was associated with poor sleep outcomes; (c) ASI cognitive concerns was associated with both attentional bias to sleep-related threat and poor sleep outcomes; and (d) anxiety sensitivity did not moderate the relationship between emotional distress and physiological arousal and attentional bias. These results highlight potential targets for therapeutic interventions such as decreasing attentional focus on sleep-related threat and reducing cognitive concerns associated with anxiety sensitivity.

Recommended Citation

Buda, Kara L., "The Effects of Mood and Anxiety Sensitivity on Attentional Engagement and Disengagement in Sleep Disturbance" (2024). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/5935