Word: sleeps
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Many researchers who study sleep and memory were excited by this new study (not to mention purveyors of nighttime subliminal-message CDs that purport to make you quit smoking or love yourself) - but experts acknowledge that more work needs to be done. "I would consider this a very, very small effect," says Paller, so don't expect to be able to boost your SAT score while sleeping just...
...nearly two centuries, researchers have suspected that sleep plays an important role in learning and memory. But it's only in the last decade that neuroscientists have discovered the most convincing evidence that memory is indeed dependent on sleep. The prevailing theory is that during deep sleep, the brain replays certain experiences from the day, which, in turn, strengthens the memory of what happened. It is thought that when it comes to factual memories, like names, faces, numbers or locations, memory consolidation happens only during deep sleep - a phase of non-rapid eye movement sleep. (The other broad type...
...minority of neuroscientists disagree that sleep actively aids memory, suggesting instead that consolidation of memories is merely a side effect of snoozing. They argue that the true purpose of sleep is to "cool down" the brain by resting the neurons that have been firing all day long. Paller's study lends support for the majority view: when sounds were played to the sleeping brain, the EEG patterns indicated activity - signaling that perhaps certain memories were being revisited - and this processing appeared to strengthen memories. "The meow somehow stimulated the association of the cat with a certain position on the screen...
Born and his team have also been able to influence memory recall during sleep - not with sounds, but with odors. In that study, published in March 2007 in Science, researchers asked people to play a memory card game while the smell of roses wafted through a special face mask. Later that night, when the participants were fast asleep, the same odor was delivered to some of them. The following morning, each person played the same game, and the results were clear: the players who got the nighttime rose odor were significantly better at remembering the card pairs than the group...
Beyond sensory stimulation during sleep, the timing of sleep may also be important to memory. Recent research suggests that deep sleep can strengthen factual memories, but only if the person naps within 12 hours of learning. In other words, if you have to memorize an SAT word list, you might be better off doing it at night rather than in the morning...