After a night without sleep, people notice fewer of their own mistakes
Thirty healthy adults did a computer task once when rested and once after a full night without sleep. After sleep loss they made more errors, spotted fewer of them, and adjusted less after judging they had slipped.
At a glance
- Thirty healthy adults did the same task when rested and after a night without sleep.
- After sleep loss, people were slower, less accurate and noticed fewer of their own errors.
- Their usual slowing down after a suspected mistake was weaker.
- Study type
- Laboratory experiment where each person was tested twice, once rested and once after one night of total sleep deprivation
- Who took part
- 30 healthy adults
- Published
- Sleep, 2026
- Strength of evidence
- Early evidence This was a small laboratory study of one night of total sleep loss, using a computer game. It cannot show what happens in everyday life.
What the researchers did
Thirty healthy adults took part. Each did a gamified reaction task twice, once after normal sleep and once after staying awake for a whole night. The task needed them to follow changing rules.
On every trial, people gave their answer. They then said whether they thought it was right or wrong. This let the researchers compare actual mistakes with the mistakes people were aware of.
The researchers then looked at what people did after each trial. They checked whether they slowed down or became more or less accurate, and how this depended on whether the answer was wrong or only felt wrong.
What they found
After a night without sleep, people responded more slowly, were less accurate and missed more responses. They also spotted a smaller share of their own errors. These problems got worse the longer the task went on.
When rested, people tended to slow down after a mistake. They slowed down more after answers they felt were wrong than after answers that were actually wrong. After sleep loss, this extra caution was smaller. Even when a correct answer was wrongly judged to be an error, people slowed down less than when rested.
Accuracy also dropped on the trial after a mistake. This was most obvious after answers that were actually wrong.
The caveats
- Only 30 people took part, and the abstract does not give their ages.
- The study looked at one night of total sleep loss. Many people who sleep badly lose only some sleep, and the study cannot say how partial sleep loss would compare.
- The task was a computer game in a lab. It does not show how people notice or react to mistakes at work or while driving.
- The abstract does not say how long the effects lasted, or whether they were the same for everyone.
What this could mean for you
This study suggests that after a night without sleep, it may be harder to notice your own slips. That fits with the idea that being very tired makes tasks needing care more risky.
The study did not test driving or work tasks. A sensible approach is to take extra care, or get help double-checking, when you are very tired and a mistake would matter.
If you often feel too tired to function well, speak to your doctor, as poor sleep can have treatable causes.
The study
Kirschner H, Tegelbeckers J, Janko D et al. Sleep deprivation disrupts error awareness and subsequent behavioural regulation. Sleep, 2026.