Daytime Naps Promote Skilled-movement Learning
Whether you are learning to play the piano or learning to throw a football to a fast-breaking receiver, the necessary muscle movements have to be memorized. Converting the memory of movements into long-lasting form takes several hours or more for the brain to "consolidate" the learned movements. This process can be disrupted by trying to learn a different movement during this vulnerable period. For example, consolidation of the memory for a few chords on the piano can be disrupted by trying to learn finger movements on a computer keyboard during this consolidation period.
Another feature of motor learning is that delayed gains in skill performance can occur after a latent period of several hours after an effective learning experience. This delayed performance gain depends on the first post-training night's sleep (I have explained the role of sleep on other kinds of memory in my book on improving memory.
Now comes a study that shows that daytime naps condense the time course of motor- memory consolidation. In the experiment, subjects learned a five-element finger-to-thumb opposition sequence with their non-dominant hand. Then the experimenters tested the effect of a post-training nap. Compared to no-nap controls, a 90-minute daytime nap immediately after training markedly reduced the susceptibility to post-training interference effects and produced a much earlier expression of delayed gains within 8 hours post training. Thus, both memory-enhancing effects were produced by the nap.
Tags: Nature Neuroscience, Source KormanRelated posts
Naps Promote Learning of Movement Skills
Another feature of motor learning is that delayed gains in skill performance can occur after a latent period of several hours after an effective learning experience. This delayed performance gain depends on the first post-training night's sleep (I have explained the role of sleep on other kinds of memory in my book on improving memory).
Related posts
Need to Learn Something Quickly? Try a Nap
Daytime naps are said to rejuvenate energy and lower stress. Now there is evidence that naps speed up consolidation of memories. Maria Korman and her group at the University of Haifa evaluated consolidation of a procedural memory task of learning to bring the thumb and finger together in a specific sequence. Half of the subjects were allowed to take an afternoon 90-min nap after training, while the other group stayed awake. The group that napped showed a distinct improvement in task performance when tested that evening. After a night's sleep, both groups showed the same improvement in acquired skill. So, it would appear that the nap just speeded up the consolidation process, rather than improving on the improvement that a regular night's sleep can produce.
The role of napping on interference effects was also tested. We know from numerous studies that consolidation of new learning is easily disrupted by distracting or other new learning experiences. In this experiment, another group of subjects learned a different thumb-to-finger movement sequence two hours after practicing the first task. Learning a second task right after the first was expected to interfere with learning of the first task. This proved to be the case; there was no improvement in performance of the first task either that evening or the next day after a normal night's sleep. However, based on the findings of the first experiment where a nap speeded up consolidation, the experimenters created yet another group of subjects that were allowed a 90-min nap between learning the first movement task and the second movement task. In this case, performance on the first task was improved when they were tested the next day after a normal night's sleep. Thus, the nap actually prevented the otherwise memory disrupting effect of a second learning task, presumably because the nap speeded up memory consolidation of the initial learning so that it was resistant to interference effects.
Tags: Maria Korman, Nature Neuroscience, Source Korman