© Scientifilms - Déchiffrer la conscience, voyage dans l’étoffe de nos pensées. Participant of a sleep experiment equipped with an electroencephalogram. The electroencephalogram records brain’s electrical activity and allows to determine in real time whether a person is awake or asleep. Response handles placed in participants’ hands allowed them to categorise the sounds presented during the experiment.
We know that sleep helps us integrate knowledge acquired during the day. But can we learn new things while sleeping? By exposing subjects to repeated auditory stimuli, a team of researchers has just demonstrated that the brain is capable of learning such sound patterns during certain sleep stages—though they may be forgotten during deep sleep. Led by the Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique (CNRS / ENS / EHESS) in collaboration with the Laboratoire des Systèmes Perceptifs (CNRS / ENS) and the Centre du Sommeil et de la Vigilance (AP-HP / Paris Descartes University) at Hôtel Dieu Hospital, this study is the subject of an article published on August 8, 2017. The human brain's capacity for learning is astonishing: it can even memorize meaningless sounds if repeated. Hence, a pattern of white noise, like that produced by a radio when it can't pick up any station, can be learned if heard only a few times. The listener doesn't even have to be paying attention. The researchers chose this kind of passive auditory stimulation—particularly well suited for subjects who are asleep—to explore the connection between learning and sleep.
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