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Hermesch N, Konrad C, Barr R, Herbert JS, Seehagen S. Sleep-dependent memory consolidation of televised content in infants. J Sleep Res 2024; 33:e14121. [PMID: 38112265 DOI: 10.1111/jsr.14121] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/12/2023] [Revised: 11/22/2023] [Accepted: 11/24/2023] [Indexed: 12/21/2023]
Abstract
Infants face the constant challenge of selecting information for encoding and storage from a continuous incoming stream of data. Sleep might help in this process by selectively consolidating new memory traces that are likely to be of future relevance. Using a deferred imitation paradigm and an experimental design, we asked whether 15- and 24-month-old infants (N = 105) who slept soon after encoding a televised demonstration of target actions would show higher imitation scores (retention) after a 24-h delay than same-aged infants who stayed awake for ≥4 h after encoding. In light of infants' well-known difficulties in learning and remembering information from screens, we tested if increasing the relevance of the televised content via standardised caregiver verbalisations might yield the highest imitation scores in the sleep condition. Regardless of sleep condition, 24-month-olds exhibited retention of target actions while 15-month-olds consistently failed to do so. For 24-month-olds, temporal recall was facilitated by sleep, but not by parental verbalisations. Correlational analyses revealed that more time asleep within 4 h after encoding was associated with better retention of the target actions and their temporal order in 24-months-olds. These results suggest that sleep facilitates memory consolidation of screen-based content in late infancy and that this effect might not hinge on caregivers' verbal engagement during viewing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Neele Hermesch
- Faculty of Psychology, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany
| | - Carolin Konrad
- Faculty of Psychology, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany
| | - Rachel Barr
- Department of Psychology, Georgetown University, Washington, District of Columbia, USA
| | - Jane S Herbert
- School of Psychology, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia
| | - Sabine Seehagen
- Faculty of Psychology, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany
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2
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Bobrowicz K, Thibaut JP. The Development of Flexible Problem Solving: An Integrative Approach. J Intell 2023; 11:119. [PMID: 37367522 DOI: 10.3390/jintelligence11060119] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/05/2023] [Revised: 06/03/2023] [Accepted: 06/06/2023] [Indexed: 06/28/2023] Open
Abstract
Flexible problem solving, the ability to deal with currently goal-irrelevant information that may have been goal-relevant in previous, similar situations, plays a prominent role in cognitive development and has been repeatedly investigated in developmental research. However, this research, spanning from infancy to the school years, lacks a unifying framework, obscuring the developmental timing of flexible problem solving. Therefore, in this review paper, previous findings are gathered, organized, and integrated under a common framework to unveil how and when flexible problem solving develops. It is showed that the development of flexible problem solving coincides with increases in executive functions, that is, inhibition, working memory and task switching. The analysis of previous findings shows that dealing with goal-irrelevant, non-salient information received far more attention than generalizing in the presence of goal-irrelevant, salient information. The developmental timing of the latter can only be inferred from few transfer studies, as well as executive functions, planning and theory of mind research, to highlight gaps in knowledge and sketch out future research directions. Understanding how transfer in the presence of seemingly relevant but truly irrelevant information develops has implications for well-balanced participation in information societies, early and lifespan education, and investigating the evolutionary trajectory of flexible problem solving.
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Affiliation(s)
- Katarzyna Bobrowicz
- Department of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences, University of Luxembourg, 4366 Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg
| | - Jean-Pierre Thibaut
- LEAD-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique UMR-5022, University of Burgundy, 21000 Dijon, France
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3
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Horger MN, DeMasi A, Allia AM, Scher A, Berger SE. The unique contributions of day and night sleep to infant motor problem solving. J Exp Child Psychol 2023; 226:105536. [PMID: 36116316 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2022.105536] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/11/2022] [Revised: 08/07/2022] [Accepted: 08/08/2022] [Indexed: 10/14/2022]
Abstract
The current study sought to tease apart the unique contributions of napping and nighttime sleep to infant learning, specifically in the context of motor problem solving. We challenged 54 walking infants to solve a novel locomotor problem at three time points-training, test, and follow-up the next morning. One group of infants napped during the delay between training and test. Another group did not sleep during the delay. A third group received the test immediately after training with no delay. Only the Nap group's strategy choices continued to improve through the follow-up session, suggesting that daytime sleep has an active role in strengthening otherwise fragile memory. Although group did not affect strategy maintenance, walk experience did, suggesting that task difficulty may shape the impact of sleep on learning. Thus, day sleep and night sleep make independent contributions to the consolidation of motor problem-solving strategies during infancy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Melissa N Horger
- Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, NY 10016, USA
| | - Aaron DeMasi
- Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, NY 10016, USA
| | - Angelina M Allia
- College of Staten Island, City University of New York, Staten Island, NY 10314, USA
| | - Anat Scher
- University of Haifa, Haifa 3498838, Israel
| | - Sarah E Berger
- Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, NY 10016, USA; College of Staten Island, City University of New York, Staten Island, NY 10314, USA.
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Mason GM, Kurdziel LBF, Spencer RMC. The memory benefits of two naps per day during infancy: A pilot investigation. Infant Behav Dev 2021; 65:101647. [PMID: 34530287 PMCID: PMC8627454 DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2021.101647] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/10/2021] [Revised: 09/01/2021] [Accepted: 09/07/2021] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
Abstract
In infancy, sleep occurs in multiple nap and overnight bouts that change developmentally in quantity and distribution. Though studies suggest that infant memory benefits from a single nap, no work has assessed the relative benefits of different naps (morning vs. afternoon), nor how multiple naps support memory across the day. We investigated the memory benefit of a morning nap, relative to morning wake, and the effect of these intervals on afternoon nap function in 9-month-olds (n = 15). Infants participated in two within-subjects conditions (separated by 1-2 weeks). In the Nap-Nap condition, infants took their morning and afternoon naps; in the Wake-Nap condition, infants were kept awake during morning naptime, but napped unrestricted in the afternoon. Before each nap/wake interval, infants completed an imitation memory task, with memory assessed again shortly after the nap/wake interval. In the Nap-Nap condition, infants showed memory retention across morning and afternoon naps. In contrast, infants tended to forget items learned across morning wake in the Wake-Nap condition. Moreover, morning wake was associated with a significant decline in post-nap retention of items learned in the afternoon. Furthermore, relations between nap slow-wave activity (SWA) and memory varied across naps, with SWA either not predicting (morning naps) or positively predicting (afternoon naps) memory change in the Nap-Nap condition, but negatively predicting afternoon memory change in the Wake-Nap condition. We conclude that two naps per day (rather than one) aids memory at 9 months, and that skipping the morning nap may moderate relations between afternoon nap physiology and memory.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gina M Mason
- Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, United States; Neuroscience & Behavior Program, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, United States
| | | | - Rebecca M C Spencer
- Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, United States; Neuroscience & Behavior Program, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, United States; Institute for Applied Life Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, United States.
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Seehagen S, Herbert JS, Zmyj N. Prior sleep timing and visual recognition of emotional faces in 6-month-old infants. Infant Behav Dev 2021; 65:101655. [PMID: 34689020 DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2021.101655] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/11/2021] [Revised: 09/15/2021] [Accepted: 10/08/2021] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
Face recognition is an important mnemonic ability for infants when navigating the social world. While age-related changes in face processing abilities are relatively well documented, less is known about short-term intra-individual fluctuations in this ability. Given that sleep deprivation in adults leads to impairments in information processing, we assessed the role of prior sleep on 6-month-old infants' (N = 17) visual recognition of faces showing three emotional expressions (neutral, sad, angry). Visual recognition was inferred by assessing novelty preferences for unfamiliar relative to familiarized faces in a visual recognition memory paradigm. In a within-subject design, infants participated once after they had recently woken up from a nap (nap condition) and once after they had been awake for an extended period of time (awake condition). Infants failed to show visual recognition for the neutral faces in either condition. Infants showed recognition for the sad and angry faces when tested in the awake condition, but not in the nap condition. This suggests that timing of prior sleep shapes how effectively infants process emotionally relevant information in their environment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sabine Seehagen
- School of Psychology, University of Waikato, New Zealand; Faculty of Psychology, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany.
| | - Jane S Herbert
- School of Psychology, University of Wollongong, Australia
| | - Norbert Zmyj
- Department of Educational Sciences and Psychology, TU Dortmund University, Germany
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DeMasi A, Horger MN, Allia AM, Scher A, Berger SE. Nap timing makes a difference: Sleeping sooner rather than later after learning improves infants' locomotor problem solving. Infant Behav Dev 2021; 65:101652. [PMID: 34653734 DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2021.101652] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/21/2021] [Revised: 09/14/2021] [Accepted: 10/03/2021] [Indexed: 10/20/2022]
Abstract
Twenty-nine newly-walking infants who had recently given up crawling trained to navigate a shoulder-height, nylon tunnel to reach a caregiver waiting at the other end. Infants in the Nap First group napped within 30 min of initial training. Infants in the Delay First group napped four hours after training. All infants were retested six hours after training on the same locomotor problem. Learning was measured by the number of training prompts required to solve the task, exploration, and time to solve the problem. Nap First infants benefited the most from a nap; they required fewer training prompts, used fewer posture shifts from training to test, and solved the task faster compared to Delay First infants, suggesting that optimally timed sleep does not merely protect against interference, but actively contributes to memory consolidation. This study highlights the importance of nap timing as a design feature and was a first step towards limit-testing the boundaries of the relation between sleep and learning. Infants' fragile memories require regular consolidation with intermittent periods of sleep to prevent interference or forgetting.
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Affiliation(s)
- Aaron DeMasi
- Department of Psychology, The Graduate Center, The City University of New York, 365 Fifth Ave, New York, NY, 10016, United States.
| | - Melissa N Horger
- Department of Psychology, The Graduate Center, The City University of New York, 365 Fifth Ave, New York, NY, 10016, United States
| | - Angelina M Allia
- The College of Staten Island, City University of New York, United States; Macaulay Honors College, City University of New York, United States
| | - Anat Scher
- Department of Counseling and Human Development, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
| | - Sarah E Berger
- Department of Psychology, The Graduate Center, The City University of New York, 365 Fifth Ave, New York, NY, 10016, United States; The College of Staten Island, City University of New York, United States
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Abstract
This review will explore the role of memory consolidation in speech-motor learning. Existing frameworks of speech-motor control account for the protracted time course of building the speech-motor representation. These perspectives converge on the speech-motor representation as a multimodal unit that is comprised of auditory, motor, and linguistic information. Less is known regarding the memory mechanisms that support the emergence of a generalized speech-motor unit from instances of speech production. Here, we consider the broader learning and memory consolidation literature and how it may apply to speech-motor learning. We discuss findings from relevant domains on the stabilization, enhancement, and generalization of learned information. Based on this literature, we provide our predictions for the division of labor between conscious and unconscious memory systems in speech-motor learning, and the subsequent effects of time and sleep to memory consolidation. We identify both the methodological challenges, as well as the practical importance, of advancing this work empirically. This discussion provides a foundation for building a memory-based framework for speech-motor learning.
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Horger MN, Marsiliani R, DeMasi A, Allia A, Berger SE. Researcher Choices for Infant Sleep Assessment: Parent Report, Actigraphy, and a Novel Video System. The Journal of Genetic Psychology 2021; 182:218-235. [PMID: 33845712 DOI: 10.1080/00221325.2021.1905600] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
Abstract
Incorporating infant sleep, either as a predictor or as an outcome variable, into interdisciplinary work has become increasingly popular. Sleep researchers face many methodological choices that have implications for the reliability and validity of the data. Here, the authors directly investigated the impact of design and measurement choices in a small, longitudinal sample of infants. Three sleep measurement techniques-parent-reported sleep diaries, actigraphy (Micromini Sleep Watch), and a commercial videosomnography (Nanit)-were included, using actigraphy as the baseline. Nine infants' sleep (4 girls) was measured longitudinally using all three measurement techniques. Nanit provided summary statistics, using a proprietary algorithm, for nightly sleep parameters. The actigraphy data were analyzed with both the Sadeh Infant and Sadeh algorithms. The extent to which measurements converged on sleep start and end time, number of wake episodes, sleep efficiency, and sleep duration was assessed. Measures were positively correlated. Difference scores revealed similar patterns of greater sleep estimation in parent reports and Nanit compared with actigraphy. Bland-Altman plots revealed that much of the data were within the limits of agreement, tentatively suggesting that Nanit and actigraphy may be used interchangeably. Graphs display significant variability within and between individual infants as well as across measurement techniques. Potential confounding variables that may explain the discrepancies between parent report, Sadeh Infant, Sadeh, and Nanit are discussed. The findings are also used to speak to the advantages and disadvantages of design and measurement choices. Future directions focus on the unique contributions of each measurement technique and how to capitalize on them.
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Affiliation(s)
- Melissa N Horger
- Department of Psychology, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, New York, USA
| | - Ruth Marsiliani
- Department of Psychology, The College of Staten Island, City University of New York, New York, New York, USA
| | - Aaron DeMasi
- Department of Psychology, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, New York, USA
| | - Angelina Allia
- Department of Psychology, The College of Staten Island, City University of New York, New York, New York, USA
| | - Sarah E Berger
- Department of Psychology, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, New York, USA.,Department of Psychology, The College of Staten Island, City University of New York, New York, New York, USA
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Berger SE, Scher A. Introduction. ADVANCES IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND BEHAVIOR 2021; 60:1-8. [PMID: 33641789 DOI: 10.1016/bs.acdb.2021.01.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/19/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Sarah E Berger
- Department of Psychology, The College of Staten Island and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, NY, United States.
| | - Anat Scher
- Department of Counseling and Human Development, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
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10
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The effect of napping and nighttime sleep on memory in infants. ADVANCES IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND BEHAVIOR 2021; 60:31-56. [PMID: 33641798 DOI: 10.1016/bs.acdb.2020.08.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/16/2022]
Abstract
During the first year of life, infants devote the majority of their time to sleep. Research in adults has shown that sleep supports a variety of memory processes. Surprisingly, sleep's function for infant memory has only started to receive attention in research. In this chapter, we will describe age-related changes in sleep and in memory processing over the first years of life, as well as methods to capture both sleep and memory. Then, we will review current findings on the effects of sleep on memory processing in infants. Lastly, we will also point out gaps in current knowledge and describe potential avenues for future research. Overall, the results of recent experimental studies provide evidence that timely, extended napping is involved in how memories are encoded and stored in the long-term and contribute to the formation of knowledge networks in infants.
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