Cognitive Explanation of sleep and Dreams

Question 1

What does information processing do?

Answer 1

• Sleep and dreaming is used to process information
• To consolidate memories
• To solve problems
• To reorganise memories

Question 2

Learning and Memory

Answer 2

SWS consolidates declarative memories (Tucker et al., 2006)
-Pps learned 
-Word pairs 
-Tested 6 hours later
3 Groups
-No sleep - Worst on word par task
-SWS only - Improvement on word-pair task
-REM group - No improvement

Question 3

Sleep and memory

Answer 3

• REM consolidates non-declarative memories e.g procedural (Mendick, Nakayama, and stick gold, 2003)
• Pps learned at 9 am: Visual discrimination task (spot the different orientation of lines)
• Tested 10 hours later
• Some allowed sleep
• Those who entered REM performed better later
• No improvement in the SWS/ no sleep groups

Question 4

Links to…

Answer 4

The reorganization theory (Crick and Mitchison 1983)

Question 5

Conclusion of memory consolidation

Answer 5

-Sleep seems to be an important part of consolidating our memories
-Different stages of sleep may be important for strengthening different types of memories
-SWS may enhance declarative memories
-REM may enhance non-declarative and emotional memories
But why, what’s actually happening?
-Sleep may simply allow extra rehearsal
-It may also allow us to process things more deeply