research
Developmental and Clinial Baby
Research Head: Dr. Babett Voigt, Dr. Carolin Konrad |
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Principal Investigator and Team
Dr. Sabine Seehagen
Prof. Dr. Silvia Schneider
Dr. Carolin Konrad
Collaborator
Dr. Jane Herbert
Funding
German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, SE 2154/2-1)
Duration
December 2012 – December 2015
Description
The main aim of the project was
to investigate relations between sleep and memory processing in the first year
of life. In a series of four studies, we consistently found evidence of sleep
and memory being closely intertwined early in life, extending previous findings
obtained with adult populations. In all studies, we used an imitation procedure
where a model demonstrated actions to infants using a hand puppet and the
infants’ ability to reproduce these actions was assessed immediately (Study 2)
or after delays of 4- (Study 1, Exp. 1; Studies 3 and 4) or 24-hrs (Study 1,
Exp. 2). In Studies 1, 3 and 4, an experimental approach was used where infants
were randomly assigned to nap, no-nap, and baseline control conditions,
providing the opportunity to explore cause-effect relations. In Study 2, a
correlational approach was used, supplementing the experimental data. In Study 1
we found that post-learning naps facilitated 6- and 12-month-old infants’
declarative memory consolidation. Study 2 revealed that high quality night sleep
was associated with enhanced rates of immediate imitation the following day in
6- but not 12-month-olds. In Study 3 we found that post-learning naps
facilitated 12-month-old infants’ ability to apply previously learned
information to a novel stimulus. Study 4 showed that post-learning naps enhanced
12-month-old infants’ ability to extract the gist from a learning episode.
Together, the studies suggest that sleeping behaviour is an important influence
on early human memory.