Mediating Role of Emotional Processing Styles in the Relationship Between Lateral Superiority, Circadian Rhythm, and Sleep Quality with Attentional Function

Attention is considered one of the most critical and higher-order activities of the mind and one of the prime characteristics of cognitive structure playing a significant role in the structure of intelligence, memory, and perception.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the mediating role of emotional processing styles in the relationship between lateral superiority, circadian rhythm, and sleep quality with attention performance.

This descriptive-correlational study was carried out on the undergraduate psychology students (n=2,300) of Islamic Azad University, Islamshahr Branch, Tehran, Iran, within the 2018-2019 academic year using a stratified random sampling method. The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, Morningness-Eveningness Scale (Circadian Rhythm Scale), Lateral Superiority Evaluation Checklist, Emotional Processing Scale, and Selective Attention Test were used to collect data. In this study, both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. The structural equation modeling and SmartPLS software (version 3.2.9) were utilized to investigate the research hypotheses.

The obtained results revealed that emotional processing styles played a mediating role in the relationship between circadian rhythms, lateral superiority, and sleep quality with attention performance. Therefore, it can be said that circadian rhythms, lateral superiority, and sleep quality with a coefficient of 35% (P<0.001; t-value=2.382) affected attention performance with the presence of the mediating factor of emotional processing styles.

It can be concluded that emotional processing styles mediate the relationship between sleep quality, lateral superiority, and circadian rhythms with attentional function.