Better Sleeping Experience Could Improve How We Remember Names and Faces

A study conducted by psychology and neuroscience experts revealed that a better sleeping experience could help people remember names and faces.

According to the research, people could heighten their performance on name association through a specific approach that the authors found effective. The enhancement of their memories was reactivated through the use of recorded audio. The experiment was processed by playing the pre-recorded annotations while the subjects were sleeping.

Although the investigation included resting, the experts noted that it was performed with an uninterrupted slumber and in a deep sleep. The group who had better sleeping experience and had heard a set of people's names averaged 1.5 more names. The recollection of the names was tested by presenting various pictures of the people.

Impact of Good Night's Sleep on Memory

Compared to the success rates of the better sleepers, the data gathered from the group who were interrupted showed lower results. According to the experts, the disrupted group had lower chances of memory reactivation during their sleeping time and caused negative impacts to name association on the testing phase. The data from both groups were accurately derived from a specialized device called the electroencephalogram (EEG).

Electroencephalograms are commonly utilized in the human scalp for experts to read any electrical activity present in the brain. The device uses principles of electrode transfer, an approach that works best in neurological observations without harming the selected subjects.

Northwestern University's Department of Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience Program, and Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program Nathan Whitmore, who authored the study, said in a UPI report that previous findings confirmed the manifestation of memory impairment through a variety of sleeping disorders such as apnea.

The expert said that through their recent investigation, a contributing explanation surfaced. They concluded that memories degrade because of periodical interruptions during sleep time. The findings add to initial studies showing that a better sleeping process could help the brain organ and its neurons maintain their health to perform better in terms of memory. It also supports the theory that cognitive functions are being influenced by lack of sleep.

Uninterrupted Sleep Improves Name and Face Recollection

The study was made possible through the help of 24 participants that belong in the age group of 18 to 31. The experiment required each of the subjects to familiarize themselves with the name and faces of 40 distinct students from a made-up class that focuses on Latin American history, and a separate 40 students from a class specializing in Japanese history.

Whitmore and their colleagues asked each of the participants to repeat the names of each student in a series of photo presentations. The exercise was then followed by a sleeping time, where the experts utilized EEG to monitor the participants' brain activity. During this phase, the participants were exposed to soft audio that tells the name of the class students. Lastly, the results were extracted through the name recollection from the participants.

The results showed a score of 74 out of 80 names before the sleeping phase and 75 out of 80 names after the audio-induced deep sleep. Future studies will focus more on how the disruption of sleep works and how it could benefit the elimination of unwanted memories such as types of abuse and trauma. The study was published in the journal NPJ Science of Learning, titled "Targeted memory reactivation of face-name learning depends on ample and undisturbed slow-wave sleep."

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