How does sleep make learning and memory better? In a past study, it was concluded that sleep deprivation in young adults was bad for the memory, and that sleep was ultimately necessary for human development and maintenance. Is this the same for newborns?
In one experiment, 9-month old babies were taught a simple task: how to play with toys they hadn’t seen before. The infants were shown eight different toys and four of them had to be played with in a certain way. The researchers showed the infant how to play with the specific toys and then they gave the toys to the infants to see if they could remember the actions the researchers performed. After this initial process, the research began. For the first part of the experiment, the babies were kept awake during the time they would normally be napping. It was observed that if the babies skipped their naptime, they couldn’t remember any of the toys they were initially shown. However, in the second part of the experiment, the researchers let the babies take their normal naps. It was found that the babies were able to remember the toys and, more importantly, how to play with them correctly.
This experiment ultimately showed the importance of sleep. Babies need to take naps multiple times a day because they need time to process the information that’s coming in so that they can store that information in a more permanent location. Ultimately, sleep is important for our cognitive, emotional, and physical health.
