Visuospatial working memory: does sleep quality correlate with it?

Abstract

Sleep difficulty is a common problem nowadays and it produces impairments in our cognitive functioning. A number of studies suggests that an adequate sleep quality is essential for working memory. However, knowledge regarding the effect of sleep quality on visuospatial components of working memory is scant. Therefore, the aims of this study were to investigate the relationship between sleep quality and visuospatial working memory and also to explore whether sleeping pattern as a significant predictor of visuospatial working memory performance among the young adults. 100 undergraduate students were selected as participants from different departments of Dhaka University by using convenience sampling technique. Pittsburgh sleep quality index and Dual n back test were used to meet the objectives of this study. The results revealed that poor sleep quality was significantly negatively associated with visuospatial working memory and a significant predictor of it (β =0.439, p<0.05). Adjusted R2 also indicated that the model explained 18.4% of the variance in visuospatial working memory.