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Cruz A, Minda JP. The spacing effect in remote information-integration category learning. Mem Cognit 2024:10.3758/s13421-024-01569-w. [PMID: 38684557 DOI: 10.3758/s13421-024-01569-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 04/04/2024] [Indexed: 05/02/2024]
Abstract
The present experiments examined whether the temporal distribution of procedural category learning experiences would impact learning outcomes. Participants completed the remote category learning experiments on a smartphone in one of two learning conditions: massed or distributed. Consistent with expectations, distributed learners in both experiments reached higher accuracy levels than massed learners. In Experiment 1 the effect disappeared after accounting for reaction time differences, suggesting that it was driven by attentional mechanisms. In Experiment 2, the spacing advantage was only present for previously studied items during a post-learning test, suggesting a role of consolidation. In both experiments, it seems likely that temporal spacing helped participants discover the optimal information-integration categorization strategy. These results suggest that adult category learning is facilitated by temporal spacing. Future work may further explore the effects of temporal and contextual distinctiveness of learning experiences on category learning outcomes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anthony Cruz
- Department of Psychology, Western University, Perth Drive, London, ON, N6G 1E1, Canada.
| | - John Paul Minda
- Department of Psychology, Western University, Perth Drive, London, ON, N6G 1E1, Canada
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2
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Tandoc MC, Bayda M, Poskanzer C, Cho E, Cox R, Stickgold R, Schapiro AC. Examining the effects of time of day and sleep on generalization. PLoS One 2021; 16:e0255423. [PMID: 34339459 PMCID: PMC8328323 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0255423] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/28/2021] [Accepted: 07/16/2021] [Indexed: 12/26/2022] Open
Abstract
Extracting shared structure across our experiences allows us to generalize our knowledge to novel contexts. How do different brain states influence this ability to generalize? Using a novel category learning paradigm, we assess the effect of both sleep and time of day on generalization that depends on the flexible integration of recent information. Counter to our expectations, we found no evidence that this form of generalization is better after a night of sleep relative to a day awake. Instead, we observed an effect of time of day, with better generalization in the morning than the evening. This effect also manifested as increased false memory for generalized information. In a nap experiment, we found that generalization did not benefit from having slept recently, suggesting a role for time of day apart from sleep. In follow-up experiments, we were unable to replicate the time of day effect for reasons that may relate to changes in category structure and task engagement. Despite this lack of consistency, we found a morning benefit for generalization when analyzing all the data from experiments with matched protocols (n = 136). We suggest that a state of lowered inhibition in the morning may facilitate spreading activation between otherwise separate memories, promoting this form of generalization.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marlie C. Tandoc
- Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America
| | - Mollie Bayda
- Department of Psychiatry, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center / Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
- Department of Psychology, University of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States of America
| | - Craig Poskanzer
- Department of Psychiatry, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center / Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
- Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Eileen Cho
- Department of Psychiatry, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center / Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Roy Cox
- Department of Psychiatry, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center / Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
- Department of Sleep and Cognition, Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Robert Stickgold
- Department of Psychiatry, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center / Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Anna C. Schapiro
- Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America
- Department of Psychiatry, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center / Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
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3
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Cousins JN, Teo TB, Tan ZY, Wong KF, Chee MWL. Sleep after learning aids the consolidation of factual knowledge, but not relearning. Sleep 2021; 44:5920204. [PMID: 33035340 PMCID: PMC7953205 DOI: 10.1093/sleep/zsaa210] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/29/2020] [Revised: 09/22/2020] [Indexed: 12/04/2022] Open
Abstract
Study Objectives Sleep strengthens and reorganizes declarative memories, but the extent to which these processes benefit subsequent relearning of the same material remains unknown. It is also unclear whether sleep-memory effects translate to educationally realistic learning tasks and improve long-term learning outcomes. Methods Young adults learned factual knowledge in two learning sessions that were 12 h apart and separated by either nocturnal sleep (n = 26) or daytime wakefulness (n = 26). Memory before and after the retention interval was compared to assess the effect of sleep on consolidation, while memory before and after the second learning session was compared to assess relearning. A final test 1 week later assessed whether there was any long-term advantage to sleeping between two study sessions. Results Sleep significantly enhanced consolidation of factual knowledge (p = 0.01, d = 0.72), but groups did not differ in their capacity to relearn the materials (p = 0.72, d = 0.10). After 1 week, a numerical memory advantage remained for the sleep group but was no longer significant (p = 0.21, d = 0.35). Conclusions Reduced forgetting after sleep is a robust finding that extends to our ecologically valid learning task, but we found no evidence that sleep enhances relearning. Our findings can exclude a large effect of sleep on long-term memory after 1 week, but hint at a smaller effect, leaving open the possibility of practical benefits from organizing study sessions around nocturnal sleep. These findings highlight the importance of revisiting key sleep-memory effects to assess their relevance to long-term learning outcomes with naturalistic learning materials.
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Affiliation(s)
- James N Cousins
- Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore.,Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition & Behaviour, Radboud University Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Teck Boon Teo
- Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore.,Centre for Sleep and Cognition, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore
| | - Zhi Yi Tan
- Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore
| | - Kian F Wong
- Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore.,Centre for Sleep and Cognition, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore
| | - Michael W L Chee
- Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore.,Centre for Sleep and Cognition, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore
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Tompary A, Zhou W, Davachi L. Schematic memories develop quickly, but are not expressed unless necessary. Sci Rep 2020; 10:16968. [PMID: 33046766 PMCID: PMC7550328 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-73952-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/20/2020] [Accepted: 09/21/2020] [Indexed: 02/06/2023] Open
Abstract
Episodic memory retrieval is increasingly influenced by schematic information as memories mature, but it is unclear whether this is due to the slow formation of schemas over time, or the slow forgetting of the episodes. To address this, we separately probed memory for newly learned schemas as well as their influence on episodic memory decisions. In this experiment, participants encoded images from two categories, with the location of images in each category drawn from a different spatial distribution. They could thus learn schemas of category locations by encoding specific episodes. We found that images that were more consistent with these distributions were more precisely retrieved, and this schematic influence increased over time. However, memory for the schema distribution, measured using generalization to novel images, also became less precise over time. This incongruity suggests that schemas form rapidly, but their influence on episodic retrieval is dictated by the need to bolster fading memory representations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alexa Tompary
- Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA.
| | - WenXi Zhou
- Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, NY, 10003, USA
| | - Lila Davachi
- Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, NY, 10027, USA
- Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research, Orangeburg, NY, 10962, USA
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5
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Lerner I, Gluck MA. Sleep and the extraction of hidden regularities: A systematic review and the importance of temporal rules. Sleep Med Rev 2019; 47:39-50. [PMID: 31252335 DOI: 10.1016/j.smrv.2019.05.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 32] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/28/2018] [Revised: 05/01/2019] [Accepted: 05/27/2019] [Indexed: 10/26/2022]
Abstract
As part of its role in memory consolidation, sleep has been repeatedly identified as critical for the extraction of regularities from wake experiences. However, many null results have been published as well, with no clear consensus emerging regarding the conditions that yield this sleep effect. Here, we systematically review the role of sleep in the extraction of hidden regularities, specifically those involving associative relations embedded in newly learned information. We found that the specific behavioral task used in a study had far more impact on whether a sleep effect was discovered than either the category of the cognitive processes targeted, or the particular experimental design employed. One emerging pattern, however, was that the explicit detection of hidden rules is more likely to happen when the rules are of a temporal nature (i.e., event A at time t predicts a later event B) than when they are non-temporal. We discuss this temporal rule sensitivity in reference to the compressed memory replay occurring in the hippocampus during slow-wave-sleep, and compare this effect to what happens when the extraction of regularities depends on prior knowledge and relies on structures other than the hippocampus.
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Affiliation(s)
- Itamar Lerner
- Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers University, 197 University Avenue, Newark, NJ 07102, USA.
| | - Mark A Gluck
- Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers University, 197 University Avenue, Newark, NJ 07102, USA
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Alizadeh Asfestani M, Braganza E, Schwidetzky J, Santiago J, Soekadar S, Born J, Feld GB. Overnight memory consolidation facilitates rather than interferes with new learning of similar materials-a study probing NMDA receptors. Neuropsychopharmacology 2018; 43:2292-2298. [PMID: 30046156 PMCID: PMC6135744 DOI: 10.1038/s41386-018-0139-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/24/2017] [Revised: 06/18/2018] [Accepted: 06/22/2018] [Indexed: 12/21/2022]
Abstract
Although sleep-dependent consolidation and its neurochemical underpinnings have been strongly researched, less is known about how consolidation during sleep affects subsequent learning. Since sleep enhances memory, it can be expected to pro-actively interfere with learning after sleep, in particular of similar materials. This pro-active interference should be enhanced by substances that benefit consolidation during sleep, such as D-cycloserine. We tested this hypothesis in two groups (Sleep, Wake) of young healthy participants receiving on one occasion D-cycloserine (175 mg) and on another occasion placebo, according to a double-blind balanced crossover design. Treatment was administered after participants had learned a set of word pairs (A-B list) and before nocturnal retention periods of sleep vs. wakefulness. After D-cycloserine blood plasma levels had dropped to negligible amounts, i.e., the next day in the evening, participants learned, in three sequential runs, new sets of word pairs. One list-to enhance interference-consisted of the same cue words as the original set paired with a new target word (A-C list) and the other of completely new cue words (D-E set). Unexpectedly, during post-retention learning the A-C interference list was generally better learned than the completely new D-E list, which suggests that consolidation of previously encoded similar material enhances memory integration rather than pro-active interference. Consistent with this view, new learning of word pairs was better after sleep than wakefulness. Similarly, D-cycloserine generally enhanced learning of new word pairs, compared to placebo. This effect being independent of sleep or wakefulness, leads us to speculate that D-cycloserine, in addition to enhancing sleep-dependent consolidation, might mediate a time-dependent process of active forgetting.
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Affiliation(s)
- M. Alizadeh Asfestani
- 0000 0001 2190 1447grid.10392.39Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioural Neurobiology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
| | - E. Braganza
- 0000 0001 2190 1447grid.10392.39Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioural Neurobiology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
| | - J. Schwidetzky
- 0000 0001 2190 1447grid.10392.39Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioural Neurobiology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
| | - J. Santiago
- 0000 0001 2190 1447grid.10392.39Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioural Neurobiology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany ,grid.452622.5German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD), Tübingen, Germany ,0000 0001 2190 1447grid.10392.39Institute for Diabetes Research and Metabolic Diseases of the Helmholtz Center Munich at the Eberhard Karls University Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
| | - S. Soekadar
- 0000 0001 2190 1447grid.10392.39Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
| | - J. Born
- 0000 0001 2190 1447grid.10392.39Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioural Neurobiology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany ,0000 0001 2190 1447grid.10392.39Present Address: Center for Integrative Neuroscience, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
| | - G. B. Feld
- 0000 0001 2190 1447grid.10392.39Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioural Neurobiology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany ,0000000121901201grid.83440.3bDivision of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, London, UK ,0000000121901201grid.83440.3bDepartment of Experimental Psychology, Division of Psychology and Language Science, Institute of Behavioural Neuroscience, University College London, 26 Bedford Way, London, WC1H 0AP UK
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Ashton JE, Jefferies E, Gaskell MG. A role for consolidation in cross-modal category learning. Neuropsychologia 2018; 108:50-60. [PMID: 29133108 PMCID: PMC5759996 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.11.010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/03/2017] [Revised: 09/14/2017] [Accepted: 11/09/2017] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
Abstract
The ability to categorize objects and events is a fundamental human skill that depends upon the representation of multimodal conceptual knowledge. This study investigated the acquisition and consolidation of categorical information that required participants to integrate information across visual and auditory dimensions. The impact of wake- and sleep-dependent consolidation was investigated using a paradigm in which training and testing were separated by a delay spanning either an evening of sleep or daytime wakefulness, with a paired-associate episodic memory task used as a measure of classic sleep-dependent consolidation. Participants displayed good evidence of category learning, but did not show any wake- or sleep-dependent changes in memory for category information immediately following the delay. This is in contrast to paired-associate learning, where a sleep-dependent benefit was observed in memory recall. To replicate real-world concept learning, in which knowledge is acquired across multiple distinct episodes, participants were given a second opportunity for category learning following the consolidation delay. Here we found an interaction between consolidation and learning; with greater improvements in category knowledge as a result of the second learning session for those participants who had a sleep-filled delay. These results suggest a role for sleep in the consolidation of recently acquired categorical knowledge; however this benefit does not emerge as an immediate benefit in memory recall, but by enhancing the effectiveness of future learning. This study therefore provides insights into the processes responsible for the formation and development of conceptual representations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jennifer E Ashton
- Department of Psychology, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK.
| | | | - M Gareth Gaskell
- Department of Psychology, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK
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8
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Schapiro AC, McDevitt EA, Chen L, Norman KA, Mednick SC, Rogers TT. Sleep Benefits Memory for Semantic Category Structure While Preserving Exemplar-Specific Information. Sci Rep 2017; 7:14869. [PMID: 29093451 PMCID: PMC5665979 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-12884-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 41] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/31/2017] [Accepted: 09/15/2017] [Indexed: 01/24/2023] Open
Abstract
Semantic memory encompasses knowledge about both the properties that typify concepts (e.g. robins, like all birds, have wings) as well as the properties that individuate conceptually related items (e.g. robins, in particular, have red breasts). We investigate the impact of sleep on new semantic learning using a property inference task in which both kinds of information are initially acquired equally well. Participants learned about three categories of novel objects possessing some properties that were shared among category exemplars and others that were unique to an exemplar, with exposure frequency varying across categories. In Experiment 1, memory for shared properties improved and memory for unique properties was preserved across a night of sleep, while memory for both feature types declined over a day awake. In Experiment 2, memory for shared properties improved across a nap, but only for the lower-frequency category, suggesting a prioritization of weakly learned information early in a sleep period. The increase was significantly correlated with amount of REM, but was also observed in participants who did not enter REM, suggesting involvement of both REM and NREM sleep. The results provide the first evidence that sleep improves memory for the shared structure of object categories, while simultaneously preserving object-unique information.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anna C Schapiro
- Department of Psychiatry, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
| | - Elizabeth A McDevitt
- Department of Psychology, University of California-Riverside, Riverside, CA, USA
| | - Lang Chen
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA
| | - Kenneth A Norman
- Princeton Neuroscience Institute and Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
| | - Sara C Mednick
- Department of Psychology, University of California-Riverside, Riverside, CA, USA
| | - Timothy T Rogers
- Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA
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