They found it easier to identify the white noise which had repeated sounds in it because they had heard it while asleep.īut the noise played while people were in deep sleep, which makes up almost a third of our slumbers, was forgotten. The sounds heard during the REM (rapid eye movement) stage of sleep were remembered by these people when they woke up. In a study published by experts from PSL Research University in Paris in August 2017, researchers tested sleep learning by playing 20 participants white noise, which contained patterns of sound. That is thought to be because the brain is busy erasing memories at this time, and the new knowledge is dumped along with them. Leaving a tape running overnight is probably counter-productive as information gained in deep sleep can be completely lost.įrench researchers found that sound played during certain parts of deep sleep may make information harder to learn when you wake up than if you had never heard it before. Scientists have previously found that the brain does take in what it hears during REM sleep – the time spent mostly dreaming, usually in the morning before we wake up. It is the perfect learning shortcut, to play a language tape or revision recording at night while you are asleep.īut those desperately hoping the information will go in as they snooze may be disappointed. While the study was carried out at daycare centres to make the children feel more comfortable, the researchers acknowledge that this does mean that they were unable to measure physiological factors, such as rapid eye movement (REM) in the youngsters as the slept. The results revealed that children performed better on the tests following a daytime nap, with the effect maintained through to the following day.
To assess their learning, the children were tested both after a nap and following a period of wakefulness with questions such as 'Which sound does the letter C make?' and 'Here's Tav and Cav, which one is /kav/?' The children napped regularly and were not formally taught letter names or sounds at the daycare centre.Įach child participated in seven sessions over two to four weeks, starting with a pre-test to establish their baseline levels of letters and sounds.įollowing this initial analysis, the children were given letter-sound mapping training, held a week apart under both 'nap' and 'no-nap' conditions. In the new study, 32 three-to-five-year-old children from two daycare centres in Sydney were studied. While previous research has shown that letter-sound mapping in preschool is linked with later reading success, until now, little has been known about the relationship between sleep and literacy skills.