The Verdict: Sleep On It!
Research from the University of Chicago showed that sleep helps the mind learn complicated tasks and helps people recover learning they otherwise thought they had forgotten over the course of a day.
Timothy Brawn, a graduate student in Psychology at the University of Chicago; Kimberly Fenn, now an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Michigan State University; and Daniel Margoliash, Professor in the Departments of Organismal Biology & Anatomy and Psychology at the University of Chicago, very cleverly used video games with over 200 college students, to demonstrate that:
1.- When trained in the morning, subjects showed an 8 percentage point improvement in accuracy immediately after training. However, after 12 waking hours following training, subjects lost half of that improvement, when tested in the evening. When subjects were tested the next morning 24 hours after training, they showed a 10 percentage point improvement over their pre-test performance.
2.- “The students probably tested more poorly in the afternoon because following training, some of their waking experiences interfered with training. Those distractions went away when they slept and the brain was able to do its work”, Nusbaum said.
3.- Among the students who received evening training, scores improved by about 7 percentage points, went to 10 percentage points the next morning, and remained at that level throughout the day.
4.- “In this study, we showed that if after learning, by the end of the day, people ‘forgot’ some of what was learned, a night’s sleep restored this memory loss,” Nusbaum said. “Furthermore, a night’s sleep protected memory against loss over the course of the next day.”
5.- “The latest study has been expanded to show that sleep benefits people learning complicated tasks as well”, Nusbaum said.
Until next time, be wise and have fun.
J. Semo