I chose this article because I am interested in the effects that sleep has on my abilities to perform and remember things from my life. This article is about a study that examines the effects sleep has on motor skills. Previous research has shown that sleep does play an important role in memory consolidation in our motor skills but without controlling for circadian rhythm or homeostatic confounds. This particular research controlled for the time of day and the time since sleep between the groups of participants. The research consisted of 79 undergraduate students who participated for course credit. After eliminating subjects from the study because they did not fit the criteria, they had 43 participants. They placed the participants into 3 different groups: an awake group, a one night group, and a two night group. They were trained and then tested. The wake group returned for testing the next day at 5:30 p.m.(8-hour delay), the second group returned at 5:30 the second day(a 32-hr delay), and the two night group returned for testing on the third day(a 56 hr delay). To test for memory consolidation they performed a finger tapping task following the sequence of 4,1,3,2,4 where it lit up when they pressed it. Right after testing was over the participants were given a sleepiness scale and asked to rate how tired they felt, the hours they slept the night before testing, the naps they had taken between sessions, and if they practiced between sessions. The researchers found that sleeping after training did not enhance motor sequence performance and memory. This disproves what I have always thought that if you study and then sleep that you will learn it better. Man, that stinks.
Cai, Denise J., Rickard, Timothy C. Reconsidering the role of sleep for motor memory.
Behavioral Neuroscience, Vol 123(6), Dec 2009, 1153-1157. doi: 10.1037/a0017672
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