And Doctor Bliss slipped me a preparation and I fell asleep with Livery Stable Blues in my ear
Sounds played as you sleep can reinforce memories.
Ken Paller and his colleagues at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois asked people to memorise which images and their associated sounds – such as a picture of a cat and a miaow – were associated with a certain area on a computer screen and then to take a nap. They played half the group the sounds in their sleep, and these people were better at remembering the associations than the rest when they woke up.
How can you boost your sleep learning capacity?
As a rule, hit the hay after learning something new – late-night TV and Xbox marathons are a no-no.
That is, of course, unless the skill you hope to learn is a computer game: when Sidarta Ribeiro of the Edmond and Lily Safra International Institute of Neuroscience in Natal, Brazil, got people to play shoot-’em-up video game Doom before bed, those who dreamed about the game during their sleep were better players the next day.
{ NewScientist | Continue reading | Cosmos magazine | Read more }
photo { Malerie Marder }
