Effect of Sleep on Memory Essays

Memory can also be affected by lack of sleep. Also peoples inability to remember things can be affected.

“ Robert Stickgold, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, proposes that sleep-including short naps that include deep sleep-offers our brains the chance to decide what new information to keep and what to toss.”(lines 62-71). This means that if people have naps that include deep sleep, their brain will throw out useless information and keep important information that is new. This makes Randall's argument stronger because if Randall only had kids and a teacher it would not be as effective, but if doctors or professors or people like that then it is more effective. Another piece of evidence is, “In another study conducted by Simon Durrant, a professor at the University of Lincoln, in England, the amount of time a subject spent in deep sleep during a nap predicted his or her later performance at recalling a short burst of melodic tones.”(lines 57-59). This means that the amount of deep sleep during a nap can predict performance at knowing melodic tones. This makes Randall's argument stronger because since Durrant is a professor, he went to school for four years or more to learn about the mind, which includes sleep studies, instead of a teacher who goes to school to teach and gets class studies from resources. In Lang’s article, “Turn Off, Tune Out, Tune In, she only has one important credible source, who is a doctor. She also has a source who is called the National Sleep Foundation, “But in a national survey

In a laboratory study of sleep deprivation, researchers employed a variety of techniques to keep volunteers awake for variable amounts of time. One group of participants was kept awake for 24 hours, and the other was kept awake for 48 hours. During periods of forced wakefulness, participants were required to engage verbal learning tasks such as memorizing the definitions of obscure English words. At the conclusion of the period of forced wakefulness, participants were allowed to sleep for as

This paper examines five different sources of information that addresses information pertaining to wakeful resting or sleeping and the effects it has on memory garnered by experiments performed on humans and animals. Wakeful resting is defined as an individual that has not fallen asleep but has engaged in a period of rest that cuts them off from the distractions of the outside world. Sleep is the bodies natural cycle of rest that suspends the consciousness and allows both the body and the mind to take a break from any stressful activities and recover. By either taking a short wakeful rest or going to sleep after learning new material, memory consolidation in both humans and animals will be improved, and it is not limited to humans that

There have been many experiments performed trying to find the correlation between sleep and memory. One of these experiments has showed that different stages of sleep has different effects on memory for instance, not only has sleep been seen to combine new memory with old long-term memories, but also helps stabilize memory (Born & Rasch, 2013). Using the Memory Interference Test (MIT), Amir conducted an experiment to further confirm the conclusion that the sleep improves a person’s memory. The experiment compared the amount of correctly remembered pictures by a sample people who had eight hours of sleep compared to a sample with only four hours of sleep. The hypothesis is that there is a correlation between the amount of sleep a person

An article in Nature Neuroscience from February 2009 describes an experiment which was conducted regarding sleep and its correlation to memory. Memory was impaired after 35 hours of sleep deprivation weekly and constant shallow sleep. Regular sleep benefits memory as newly stored information is easily encoded. Proper sleep is crucial for processing and retaining new information. Those who suffer from sleep deprivation struggle to maintain new information and with comprehension skills. In order for students to maximize their learning capabilities, they need the proper sleep to be mentally prepared for

This article explains the importance of getting the perfect amount of sleep at night. The idea that sleeping for less than five hours or more than nine hours proves to have a negative effect on the human body. Sleep deprivation has a closely related link to memory retention and can cause a person to have trouble with daily task. The author continues to explain that not only is the brain effected by too little or too much sleep, but the rest of the body is also effected. Conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and even depression have links to not getting the perfect amount of sleep. The article concludes with listing tips to get the ideal amount of sleep at night, such as, going to sleep and waking up at the same time every day and limiting the amount of caffeine that is consumed throughout the day.

The amount of sleep was self-reported by participants using a sleep diary. In the sleep diary participants would note the time they got into bed, how long it took them to fall asleep, the number and duration of awakenings during the night, what time they awoke, and what time they got out of bed. Misinformation or false memory was evaluated in a few different phases. In the first phase the participants took part in a

Most studies are about discovering the contributors of false memories. However, this study focuses on how sleep deprivation contributes to false memories even though many studies argue that sleep deprivation damages cognitive function. Their study went in detail by researching the effect encoding have during this process. They found that if a participant was sleep deprived during event encoding; he or she would increase the likelihood of falsifying memories. However, when the participant was sleep deprived after encoding had already occurred then there was no big impact on falsifying memories. These experiments are conducted on the effect of sleep deprivation contributing to false memories since false memories can have dreadful consequences.

A greater understanding of these complex and dynamic brain states has helped clarify the ways in which sleep enhances memory processing. An increasing number of sleep studies have behaviourally assessed the facilitative role of REM and NREM sleep on declarative and procedural memory performance in humans. The preliminary results provided initial evidence to the idea that hippocampal-dependent declarative memories, such as memories of personal events and fact-based information, are facilitated by NREM sleep (specifically SWS) and hippocampal-independent procedural memories are facilitated by REM sleep (Plihal & Born, 1997).

During states of arousal and wakefulness, information is encoded in the neocortical and hippocampal networks in the form of memories (Frankland et al., 2005). The networks that are activated during wakefulness are subsequently reactivated during SWS via SWA, which leads to synaptic downscaling and memory consolidation. A study conducted by Peigneux and colleagues (2004) provided evidence that presents a positive association between improvement in post-sleep retrieval activity performance and the amount of hippocampal SWA that an individual experiences during SWS. This study suggests a correlation between the reactivation of wake-active neuronal networks via SWA and memory improvement during SWS. In addition to the overnight evaluation of memory consolidation, short-term evaluation of memory across the first day, which included a 90 minute sleep period between training and performance of the retrieval activity, also demonstrated a positive correlation between the amount of SWA that occurred during the sleep period and the success of the retrieval activity performance (Peigneux et al., 2004). Moreover, a study conducted by Marshall and colleagues (2004), also examined the manipulation of memory consolidation during sleep and found a positive association between hippocampal SWA and the performance of a

Sleep is essential for optimal human function. In fact, a lack of sleep can actually affect important cognitive functions, like memory. A 2007 study added to the already substantial evidence that even acute total sleep deprivation impairs attentiveness, working memory, and reaction time in various tasks (Alhola, Polo-Kantola). One such way to further this investigation of the effects of sleep deprivation on memory is through the Memory Interference Test, or MIT. MIT is a program designed by Gaston Pfluegl, Ph.D., and Enrique Lopez, Psy. D., at UCLA to test the memory of students. Along with a memory test, the MIT also anonymously collected the physical states, mental states, and demographics of each student test subject, providing a substantial database through which students can test hypotheses, such as the connection between sleep deprivation and memory. Since the MIT requires short-term memory recall, the hours of sleep a student had before taking the test could have a noticeable effect on his or her performance. An unprecedented study this year found that sleep deprivation may actually even induce false memories, which would certainly impact a student taking the MIT because the test requires the subject to recognize images that have been previously presented to them (Frenda, et al). The hypothesis is that students who slept 8 hours before the test will perform better on the MIT than students who only slept 4 hours. The null hypothesis is that students who had adequate

Sleep is one of the unavoidable daily-living activities and it is one of the most important factors contributing to a person’s health. A quality sleep is essential for the physical, cognitive and psychological well-being of a person. Learning, memory processing and maintenance of the brain are among the most important functions of sleep. In addition to maintaining the brain, sleep has important roles in controlling the

Memory formation can be described as the process through which neuronal activity produces long-term synaptic changes (Hebb, 1949), and involves both encoding and consolidation. Sleep consists of rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep and non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, with the latter including slow wave sleep (SWS). Predominantly, sleep plays a role in the consolidation of new memories, but also benefits encoding via increases in concentration (Sarode, et al., 2013). The extent of these benefits depends on a number of factors including the duration and time of sleep after learning (Diekelmann, Wilhelm, & Born, 2009). SWS and REM sleep also influence memory formation, with

The behavior change I decided to focus on is: getting more sleep every day. For this, the article I chose is: Why Is Sleep Important. Sleeping plays a key role in maintaining a healthy life as it affects our mental activities, as well as physical health. When we sleep, the same as when we are awake, we tend to process information outside our conscious awareness. Whenever we are asleep, we may think our brains turns off but it is always still active because of the biological rhythm that is has. Having enough sleep helps us humans, and living things in general, ameliorate our immune system and gives our neurons time to repair themselves. Another benefit of sleeping enough is the fact that it helps rebuild the memories that may have faded, it reactivates them. Sleeping boosts your creativity. In fact, people who sleep on a task after having worked on it, tend to solve difficult problems more effectively. It also supports growth by releasing a hormone that is necessary for muscle development.