Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Comparative Study
. 2006 May-Jun;13(3):259-62.
doi: 10.1101/lm.132106.

Sleep after learning aids memory recall

Steffen Gais  1 , Brian Lucas, Jan Born
Affiliations
Comparative Study

Sleep after learning aids memory recall

Steffen Gais et al. Learn Mem. 2006 May-Jun.

Abstract

In recent years, the effect of sleep on memory consolidation has received considerable attention. In humans, these studies concentrated mainly on procedural types of memory, which are considered to be hippocampus-independent. Here, we show that sleep also has a persisting effect on hippocampus-dependent declarative memory. In two experiments, we examined high school students' ability to remember vocabulary. We show that declarative memory is enhanced when sleep follows within a few hours of learning, independent of time of day, and with equal amounts of interference during retention intervals. Sleep deprivation has a detrimental effect on memory, which was significant after a night of recovery sleep. Thus, fatigue accumulating during wake intervals could be ruled out as a confound.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Schematic of the experimental design. Timing of the four conditions of the first experiment (A) and the two conditions of the second experiment (B). Subjects participated in all conditions of one experiment according to a within-subject design. (LR) Learning, (R) recall test, (SD) sleep deprivation. Shaded areas represent nighttime intervals.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Forgetting indicated as average individual percent change in recall score across periods of sleep and wakefulness. (A,B,C) The first experiment shows that only the time of learning (8 a.m. or 8 p.m.) affects memory retention (A) **P < 0.01; refer to Fig. 1 for experimental design. Retention intervals of 24 h and 36 h (B) and time of recall testing (C) did not significantly change memory performance. Results are averaged across the remaining conditions (time of learning, time of recall, and duration of the retention interval), respectively. See Table 1 for full, non-averaged results. (D) In the second experiment, subjects showed better recall at a retrieval testing 48 h after learning (in the evening) when they had slept within a few hours of learning than when they were sleep-deprived during the first night after learning, *P < 0.05.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Benson K., Feinberg I. Sleep and memory: Retention 8 and 24 hours after initial learning. Psychophysiology. 1975;12:192–195. - PubMed
    1. Benson K., Feinberg I. The beneficial effect of sleep in an extended Jenkins and Dallenbach paradigm. Psychophysiology. 1977;14:375–384. - PubMed
    1. De Koninck J., Lorrain D., Christ G., Proulx G., Coulombe D. Intensive language learning and increases in rapid eye movement sleep: Evidence of a performance factor. Int. J. Psychophysiol. 1989;8:43–47. - PubMed
    1. Dudai Y. The neurobiology of consolidations, or, how stable is the engram? Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2004;55:51–86. - PubMed
    1. Ekstrand B.R., Sullivan M.J., Parker D.F., West J.N. Spontaneous recovery and sleep. J. Exp. Psychol. 1971;88:142–144. - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources