Does Sleep Make You Smarter?

When we sleep, our brains are active. During the cycles of sleep, our brains process the information we have learned during the day, it makes our memories stronger and eliminates the least important details of the day, and help to solve problems that complex us during the day.

In 2006, Robert Stickold performed an experiment to prove that sleep stabilizes memories. They had the volunteers memorize words in an A-B pattern. Then they let half of the volunteers sleep and kept the other half awake all night. In the morning, they taught them words in an A-C pattern. The group that was able to sleep remembered far more of the A-B pairs than the group that had obtained no sleep.

Besides stabilization, our brains also may be deciding what of the day's information is important to remember and what can be discarded. One study that was conducted tested the memory of neutral objects against a neutral background against emotionally evocative objects. The memory of the neutral objects decreased by 10% only twelve hours later, and the memory of the emotional objects improved in twelve hours. During sleep our memories are recalling and reviewing our memories, which makes them stronger. This also increases the possibility of long-term retention.

Studies have also shown that the popular phrase "sleep on it" may actually be true. In 2007, Jeffery Ellenbogen conducted a study that proved we learn during our sleep. He did a cognitive study use premise pairs that built on each other. They had to learn which pairs to choose (purple ring over brown, brown ring over green, etc). After twenty minutes, the volunteers had still not noticed the hidden theme that one object is superior to another. Twelve hours later, after sleep, they picked the correct superior pair 70% of the time. Therefore, the brain needs longer time to process and piece together information.

My response:

This article was very interesting, but i think that it still lacked some details. Some of these details might not be known yet, but I was curious about some things. How does the brain know what is important? What causes these reactions? The amazement I have for God's creation of the brain has increased since reading this article. Its incredible that our brain can process information to the point of solving problems while we are not even awake.


http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-snoozing-makes-you-smarter