3.3 Sleep

Question 1

Top performers (musicians) value sleep and napping

Answer 1

Study on sleep patterns comparing world-class musicians and music teachers

Result: world class musicians rate sleep as highly relevant to their practice and performance (naps more than the group of music teachers)

Duration of napping decreased during weekends, when more time for relaxing activities such as leisure was available

Question 2

Two ways sleep improves memory

Answer 2

1. Stabilizes memory: Increase resistance to interference from other similar tasks. (interference being new knowledge that’s similar to old knowledge)
2. Consolidates and enhances memory: improves performance with no additional practice

Question 3

Interference study

Answer 3

Question: How does sleep affect interference

Protocol: Learning lists of paired associates
A-B list: Blanket - Village
A-C list: Blanket - Rubber (where interference comes from)
Then test

Conditions: 2*2
Interference/ no interference (learns A-C right before test)
Awake/ Asleep between training and test
Review diagram in video

Measuring: Success rate

Conclusion: 
Interference from worst to best
Awake
Sleep
No interference same as above (but less difference)

Question 4

Motor skill consolidation study

Answer 4

Question: How does sleep affect consolidation

Protocol: Finger tapping a sequence of numbers on a keyboard with non-dominant hand
Training -> post training -> retest 1 -> retest 2 (want multiple tests because we want to see if the memory gets strengthened)

Conditions: 3
Before/after
Before/after with hand rest
After/after (shifted by 12 hours basically)
(before = testing before sleeping. After = testing after sleeping)
Review diagram

Measuring: Number of sequences per 30s

Conclusion: Much better score in after after group, due to early sleep. Score increases right after the sleep

Question 5

Stability-plasticity dilemma

Answer 5

Plasticity (fast learning): The capacity to acquire new info
Stability (slow learning): New information should no override older info

How do we do both?

Question 6

Two memory systems

Answer 6

2 memory systems:
Long-term store - slow learning
Temporary store - fast learning

When we’re awake, activity info is encoded in both temp and long term stores (in parallel). The temp store does it more efficiently and faster.

When we’re asleep, the consolidation phase happens. The temp store plays back patterns repeatedly to drive concurrent activations in the long term store, to train it

Question 7

Memory and two stages of sleep

Answer 7

Two stages: Slow wave sleep (SWS) and rapid eye movement sleep (REM)

In SWS, active system consolidation occurs (where the temp store re-enacts patterns for the long-term store)

in REM, the stores are disconnected and synaptic consolidation occurs. Happens within the long term stores. It just reinforces the connections in the long term store.

Question 8

Naps

Answer 8

Benefits from sleep can be derived from naps

Question 9

Sleep deprivation

Answer 9

Brain functions differently and learns less effectively

35 hours of sleep deprivation resulted in significantly worse acquisition of verbal learning (40% worse)

Also impacts learning from the day before, since we’re missing out on all the benefits