摘要Traditional methods for nonlinear dynamic analysis, such as correlation dimension,Lyapunov exponent, approximate entropy, detrended fluctuation analysis, using a single parameter, cannot fully describe the extremely sophisticated behavior of electroencephalogram (EEG). The multifractal formalism reveals more "hidden" information of EEG by using singularity spectrum to characterize its nonlinear dynamics. In this paper, the zero-crossing time intervals of sleep EEG were studied using multifractal analysis. A new multifractal measure △asα was proposed to describe the asymmetry of singularity spectrum, and compared with the singularity strength range △α that was normally used as a degree indicator of multifractality. One-way analysis of variance and multiple comparison tests showed that the new measure we proposed gave better discrimination of sleep stages, especially in the discrimination between sleep and awake, and between sleep stages 3and 4.