Sleep Study Gives Clues to Memory Retention

$\"\"$ SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) -- Remember the commercials that advertised learning French or Chinese while you sleep? Scientist now believe you may not learn something new, but sleeping may serve to reinforce something you learned before nodding off.
$\"Listen\"$ KCBS’ Susan Leigh Taylor Reports

The new findings could end up helping those studying a new language, getting ready for a test, or even those memorizing lines for a play.

For the experiment, scientists had subjects come to the lab and learn some spacial information. Fifty objects were displayed on a screen, each in a random location.

"Each object also came along with a sound that wasn\'t important for the learning at the time, like the picture of the cat having a meow sound with it," said Ken Paller, a psychology professor and director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Program at Northwestern.

He says the subjects then napped. Unbeknownst to them, sounds that accompanied 25 of the 50 objects were played.

"So the idea was that if we presented those sounds they might rehearse that information while they\'re asleep and as a result be better at remembering the locations of those 50 objects, and that\'s in fact what we found when they woke up," said Paller.

So, you don\'t learn new information, but it appears you can rehearse information you\'ve already learned.

Professor Paller suspects this type of rehearsal happens all the time during slow wave sleep, whether or not sounds are present.

Now the question is, can you influence the type of information you\'re processing?

(MGO)