title: Sleep-independent off-line enhancement and time of the day effects in three forms of skill learning.
abstract: The role of sleep in memory and skill-learning processes is an important and widely debated issue. The current study explores the nature of the relationship between sleep and off-line improvement in three tasks for measuring different aspects of skill learning: the serial reaction time (SRT) task, which is a motor sequence learning task; the artificial grammar learning (AGL) task, testing abstract verbal sequence learning; and the weather prediction (WP) task, which is a non-sequential categorization task. Each participant was tested on one of the three tasks twice, either in a Wake condition (with a 12-h off-line period without sleep), or in a Sleep condition (with sleep). Results showed no sleep-related off-line improvement throughout the three tasks in a two-session re-learning design, but a sleep-independent time-based effect was found on the SRT task. No performance boost was observed in the WP and AGL tasks. Performance on the SRT showed a time of the day effect: the Sleep group outperforming the Wake group; however, this effect was restricted to overall response latencies. Taken together, no evidence was found in favor of sleep-dependent off-line enhancement in skill learning, but methodological concerns warrant further investigations.
authors: Division of Developmental Psychology, Institute for Psychology, University of Graz, Universitätsplatz 2, 8010, Graz, Austria. fkemeny@cogsci.bme.hu.|Department of Cognitive Science, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Budapest, Hungary. fkemeny@cogsci.bme.hu.|Institute for Psychology, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland. fkemeny@cogsci.bme.hu.
authors: Ferenc
authors: F
authors: Kemény
authors: Department of Cognitive Science, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Budapest, Hungary.
authors: Ágnes
authors: Á
authors: Lukács
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D009048:Motor Skills / Q000502:physiology*; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D012691:Serial Learning; D012890:Sleep / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors; D014706:Verbal Learning; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Consolidation; Off-line enhancement; Skill learning; Sleep; Time of day