Sleep is associated with offline improvement of motor sequence skill in children.
In adults, sleep is necessary for the offline improvement of certain skills, such as sequential finger tapping, but whether children show a similar effect is still debatable. Here, we tested whether sleep is associated with offline performance improvement in children. Nine- and 11-year-old children trained on an explicit sequential finger tapping task. On the night following training, their parents observed and recorded the duration of each child's sleep. The following day, all children performed a surprise retest session on the previously trained sequence. In both 9- and 11-year-old children, skill performance was significantly improved during the first retest session relative to the end of training on the previous day, confirming the offline improvement in performance. There was a significant correlation between the degree of improvement and sleep duration the night after training, suggesting that in children, as in adults, sleep is associated with offline skill enhancement.
Division of Cerebral Integration, National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki, Japan; Research Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Tokyo, Japan.
Sho K
SK
Sugawara
Laboratory of Psychology, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Hamamatsu, Japan.
Satoshi
S
Tanaka
Department of Education, Faculty of Regional Sciences, Tottori University, Tottori, Japan.
Daisuke
D
Tanaka
Department of Education, Faculty of Regional Sciences, Tottori University, Tottori, Japan; Department of Clinical Research, Tottori Medical Center, National Hospital Organization, Tottori, Japan.
Ayumi
A
Seki
School of Health Sciences, International University of Health and Welfare, Ohtawara, Japan.
Hitoshi T
HT
Uchiyama
Division of Cerebral Integration, National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki, Japan.
Shuntaro
S
Okazaki
Department of Education, Faculty of Regional Sciences, Tottori University, Tottori, Japan; Department of Clinical Research, Tottori Medical Center, National Hospital Organization, Tottori, Japan.
Tastuya
T
Koeda
Division of Cerebral Integration, National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki, Japan; Department of Physiological Sciences, The Graduate University for Advanced Studies (SOKENDAI), Hayama, Japan.
Norihiro
N
Sadato
D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention; D002648:Child; D005221:Fatigue; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009048:Motor Skills; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D012890:Sleep; D013997:Time Factors