
The Study:
Study participants were exposed to lists of words and then, 12 hours later, exposed to individual words and asked to identify which words they had seen or heard in the earlier session. One group of students was trained in the morning (10 a.m.) and tested after the course of a normal sleepless day (10 p.m.), while another group was trained at night and tested 12 hours later in the morning, after at least six hours of sleep. Three experiments were conducted, using different stimuli. In each, the students who had slept had fewer problems with false memory – choosing fewer incorrect words.How Does Sleep Help Memory?
The quick answer is, we don't know yet, but we suspects it may be due to sleep strengthening the source of the memory, Fenn said. The source, or context in which the information is acquired, is a vital element of the memory process. Or perhaps the people who didn’t sleep during the study were simply bombarded with information over the course of the day, affecting their memory ability, Fenn said. “We know older individuals generally have worse memory performance than younger individuals. We also know from other research that elderly individuals tend to be more prone to false memories,” Fenn said. “Given the work we’ve done it’s possible that sleep may actually help them to reject this false information. And potentially this could help to improve their quality of life in some way.”
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Kevin | Sep 18, 2009 | Reply
This is a great site! I thought I just come and tell you that lol.
Sam | Sep 26, 2009 | Reply
Great site.
Mrinalini Kumari | Mar 24, 2012 | Reply
so the student should get required time to sleep also during the exam…. will help them to perform better.