November 19, 2001 – The end of the semester is for most students quite trying: assignments to hand in, exams to prepare, a real marathon! We even wonder if it would not be better to spend the night reviewing his notes rather than closing the eye, in order to have the freshest “ideas” before the morning test.
Two studies, recently published in the weekly Science, present completely opposite theses on the role of sleep in the process of memorization and learning.
After analyzing a dozen studies on dreaming and learning, Dr. Siegel1, a neurologist at the University of California at Los Angeles, admits that sleep plays an important role in the acquisition of new knowledge, but does not support the hypothesis that sleep consolidates memorization. In his view, most of the results in this area lack foundation or consistency.
Conversely, the study2 Dr. Stickgold, specialist in neurophysiology and psychiatry, reveals that sleep promotes the memorization of the concepts learned. His research results showed better performance in subjects who got a good night’s sleep than in those who studied through the night. According to the specialist, thanks to new technologies for observing brain activity during sleep, we can see that the brain uses “little memory” for dreams, which allows it to proceed to assimilation and understanding. information stored during the day.
In return, Dr. Siegel adds that if this hypothesis were valid, people who do not remember their dreams, because of their medication or a brain injury, would have memory problems, which is not the case. case. For Dr. Stickgold, the popular belief of people that they fall asleep with a problem in mind and wake up with a solution in the early morning is now based on scientific evidence …
Monique Lalancette – PasseportSanté.net
According to National Post Online, November 3, 2001.
1. Siegel JM. The REM sleep-memory consolidation hypothesis. Science 2001 Nov 2; 294 (5544): 1058-63.
2. Stickgold R, Hobson JA, Fosse R, Fosse M. Sleep, learning, and dreams: off-line memory reprocessing. Science 2001 Nov 2; 294 (5544): 1052-7.
