Sleep and cognition: implications of sleep deprivation for visual perception and visuospatial

Abstract

Sleep is important for cognitive functions like visual perception and visuospatial. However, such studies are scarce with different methodologies. It’s difficult for comparisons. The objective is review the literature on the implications of sleep for visual and visuospatial perception and obtain greater understanding of this relationship. It was noted that sleep deprivation can result in the formation of double and blurred images on the retina, decrease in visual vigilance, visual acuity, fluctuation in pupil size and change in velocity of the saccade. Studies in subjects in the sleep deprivation also showed visual neglect phenomena, tunnel vision and slower processing in the parvocellular pathway, compared to the magnocellular pathway. Therefore, most research on sleep and visual perception indicate loss in the ability to accurately perceive visual stimuli of the environment due to sleep deprivation.