How Does Sleep Does In-Fact Effect Memory

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

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

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 article Sleep deprivation and false memories reported two studies, but only study one will be summarized here. The study done here is to see if amount of sleep is associated to false memories. This study is a correlational study because it is looking for the association of natural occurring variables (i.e. the amount of sleep one gets). The independent variable of this study is the amount of sleep the participants had, either they were sleep deprived or not. The dependent variable is whether or not they had false memories. The participants were made up of one hundred ninety-three undergraduates from the University of California, Irvine, 76% of which were female and 24% were male. The participants were divided into two different groups based on their self-reported sleep duration only on the night prior to the study session. The participants who reported five or fewer hours of sleep were put in the restricted sleep group, those with more than five hours were put into the reference group. Neither group differed meaningfully on age, gender, race-ethnicity etc.

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.

Both nocturnal and diurnal sleep enhances memory consolidation. Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep enhances procedural memory traces, whereas non-REM (NREM) sleep, particularly slow wave sleep (SWS), enhances declarative memory aspects. It is speculated whether an increase in time spent in the NREM stage would provide additional memory benefits. The goal of this research design is to establish whether declarative memory is dose-dependent on the length of the NREM episode achieved during sleep. First, a visuospatial object recognition task and a procedural finger sequence

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

Frenda and colleagues examined the relationship between sleep deprivation and the formation of false memories, due to prior research showing that there is a relationship between sleep deprivation and other cognitive functions, such as reaction time, working memory capacity, learning, and executive function. To support the methods they used, the researchers discussed types of false memory studies, which used suggestive questioning and misinformation procedures. They also mentioned that although there have been studies on sleep deprivation and false memory, the results have not proven to be very consistent, and they do not carry over into real life situations.

Therefore it can be inferred from from these two academic works that ASC theory and infants with insufficient sleep allude to the finding that sleep possesses a specific function for the construction of connective memories and learning that impacts a child’s development even into adulthood. This is further reinforced through Doctor Gómez and Doctor Edgin’s studies in which children, who all that were tested were “habitual nappers” (Gómez, Edgin), did “not generalize when tested or four hours later once they had slept, but they generalized after being awake for four hours afterwards”. They hypothesized that elevated levels of NREM in the naps of children cemented the infrequent features they learned such as the coloration of the object and its surroundings, preventing generalization after sleep. Comparatively, the children who went without napping “failed to remember veridical details from interaction when they were awake” (Gómez) enabling them to generalize new exemplars again under differing

The documentary is focused on the following topics: the role of sleep in strengthening memory; the first primates; an earthquake in the Midwest and the discussion on how and why earthquakes strike in the heartland of the United States; and the profile of the marine geologist, Sang-Mook Lee.

The two papers being reviewed take differing approaches to examine the research question: Talamini and colleagues (2008) examined how sleep immediately after learning benefited the consolidation of spatial associative memory, while Galambos, Howard and Maggs (2011) investigated the different factors that impact quality of sleep and academic success.

There is a strong evidence that memories are strengthened through deep sleep. The scientists did an experiments with orangutan by making them a comfortable sleep condition instead of the bed of hay. Deep sleep seemed to improve the orangutan’s cognition: “Whenever orangutan had slept more deeply, they performed better at memory games” (Barth). Deep sleep not only process good memories but also deal with sad memories. If I went to sleep feeling upset, a lot of the time I would l feel better when I wake up, and some experts argued that : “Deep sleep can disarm dangerous emotions, stripping away the upsetting aspects of it” (Lewis). Moreover, the heart rests and tired muscles repairs better while deep sleeping. When I was on my “college tests preparation” stage, I often ate a medicine which treated and improved poor memories. In fact, there is no need to buy expensive health-medicine or beauty-medicine, deep sleep is the best natural medicine.