Certain memories may rest on a good sleep
By Bruce Bower
When practicing a musical piece, a gymnastics move, or any other activity that depends on effortless, virtually automatic execution, here’s some memory-enhancing advice: If you snooze, you cruise.
That, at least, is the implication of two new studies in which people who practiced a task that demands quick visual processing performed it better on ensuing trials if they were first allowed to get some sleep.
Moreover, one investigation suggests that the initial night of sleep after learning so-called procedural skills proves crucial for memory. The other findings indicate that sleep early in the night, which includes mainly slow-wave electrical activity in the brain, aids procedural recall. Rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep later in the night strengthens only memories already bolstered by slow-wave sleep, the researchers report.