Math-themed Bedtime Stories May Boost Math Memory

Jayne Spiller and Camilla Gilmore, from the Center for Mathematical Cognition at the University of Loughborough in the UK, explored how sleep and mathematical memory intersected and discovered that post-learning sleep enhances recall.

In their article titled “The Beneficial Influence of Sleep on the Recall of Multiplication Facts,” published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, Spiller and Gilmore, hailing from the Center for Mathematical Cognition at the University of Loughborough in the UK, delved into the relationship between sleep and memory for multiplication facts. They aimed to determine whether learning complex multiplication problems before sleep had advantages in recall compared to learning them during wakefulness, focusing on the impact of sleep on memory, specifically for multiplication tables.

The Impact on Complex Multiplication

Their study involved 77 adult participants aged 18 to 40 in the UK. These participants learned complex multiplication problems in two conditions: before sleep (referred to as sleep learning) and in the morning (referred to as wake learning). The study included online sessions where participants learned new complex multiplication problems or were tested on previously learned material. These learning sessions included both untimed and timed trials.

The results indicated that participants exhibited better recall in the sleep learning condition as opposed to the wake learning condition, with a moderate effect size. This benefit persisted even among participants with varying learning abilities, although the effect size was smaller in this case. The study found that participants’ mathematical proficiency, as measured by their accuracy in simple multiplication problems, was associated with their learning scores but not with the degree of benefit from sleep-related recall.

Implications for Math Education

The research underscores the educational potential of harnessing the benefits of sleep for learning. The positive influence of sleep on the recall of complex multiplication problems could be particularly valuable for children learning multiplication tables and other math memorization skills. However, the acceptance and effectiveness of bedtime math lessons remain open questions.

The authors suggested that sleep might confer additional benefits for recall compared to daytime learning due to the absence of competing external stimuli. This limitation in their study, namely the lack of other stimuli with similar encoding complexity for comparison, prevented a definitive demonstration of the specificity of sleep-related recall benefits.

While asleep, the brain may consolidate new learning because it is not subjected to competing stimuli. In contrast, an awake brain is exposed to conversations, media consumption, reading, and other educational materials, which could compete for memory encoding. This competition in the waking brain might explain the memory differences observed in the study. However, finding alternatives to sleep for memory enhancement is challenging, given the practical limitations.

Read the original article on: Phys Org

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