Learning Process and Sleep
The Brain Response
The Basics
WHAT: How the quantity and quality of sleep impacts learning and memory.
SOURCE: Harvard Medical School, Division of Sleep Medicine
GREAT FOR: Improving Learning, Improving Memory, Personal Development, Brain Health
About
Sleep, learning, and memory are complex phenomena that are not entirely understood. However, animal and human studies suggest that the quantity and quality of sleep have a profound impact on learning and memory. Research suggests that sleep helps learning and memory in two distinct ways:
1. A sleep-deprived person cannot focus attention optimally and therefore cannot learn efficiently.
2. Sleep itself has a role in the consolidation of memory, which is essential for learning new information.
Although the exact mechanisms are not known, learning and memory are often described in terms of three functions:
Acquisition refers to the introduction of new information into the brain.
Consolidation represents the processes by which a memory becomes stable.
Recall refers to the ability to access the information (whether consciously or unconsciously) after it has been stored.
Each of these steps is necessary for proper memory function. Acquisition and recall occur only during wakefulness, but research suggests that memory consolidation takes place during sleep through the strengthening of the neural connections that form our memories. Although there is no consensus about how sleep makes this process possible, many researchers think that specific characteristics of brainwaves during different stages of sleep are associated with the formation of particular types of memory.
Sleep Stages And Declarative Memory
Different types of memories are formed in new learning situations. Scientists are exploring whether there is a relationship between the consolidation of different types of memories and the various stages of sleep.
The earliest sleep and memory research focused on declarative memory, which is the knowledge of fact-based information, or “what” we know (for example, the capital of France, or what you had for dinner last night).
In one research study, individuals engaged in an intensive language course were observed to have an increase in rapid-eye-movement sleep or REM sleep. This is a stage of sleep in which dreaming occurs most frequently. Scientists hypothesized that REM sleep played an essential role in the acquisition of learned material. Further studies have suggested that REM sleep seems to be involved in declarative memory processes if the information is complex and emotionally charged, but probably not if the information is simple and emotionally neutral.
Researchers now hypothesize that slow-wave sleep (SWS), which is deep, restorative sleep, also plays a significant role in declarative memory by processing and consolidating newly acquired information. Studies of the connection between sleep and declarative memory have had mixed results, of visual learning seem to depend on the amount and timing of both deep, slow-wave sleep (SWS) and REM sleep.
