Does sleep really influence face recognition memory?

Full Abstract

Mounting evidence implicates sleep in the consolidation of various kinds of memories. We investigated the effect of sleep on memory for face identity, a declarative form of memory that is indispensable for nearly all social interaction. In the acquisition phase, observers viewed faces that they were required to remember over a variable retention period (0-36 hours). In the test phase, observers viewed intermixed old and new faces and judged seeing each before. Participants were classified according to acquisition and test times into seven groups. Memory strength (d') and response bias (c) were evaluated. Substantial time spent awake (12 hours or more) during the retention period impaired face recognition memory evaluated at test, whereas sleep per se during the retention period did little to enhance the memory. Wakefulness during retention also led to a tightening of the decision criterion. Our findings suggest that sleep passively and transiently shelters face recognition memory from waking interference (exposure) but does not actively aid in its long-term consolidation.

Author information

Author/s: Sheth, Bhavin R (BR); Nguyen, Ngan (N); Janvelyan, Davit (D);

Affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Houston, Houston, Texas, United States of America. brsheth(-atsign-)uh.edu

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: PloS one (PLoS One), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2009-; vol 4 (issue 5) : pp e5496

Dates: Created 2009/05/08; Completed 2009/06/17;

PMID: 19424440, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 6/17/2009, IMS Date: )

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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