Sleep Helps Brain Learn Visual Tasks
Falling asleep during a class may not necessarily be a bad deal, a student may argue, as new research details the method by which the brain uses sleep to learn.
Investigators believe that during sleep the brain uses neural oscillations — brain waves — of particular frequencies to consolidate learning in specific brain regions.
As reported in the Journal of Neuroscience, Brown University scientists discovered that two specific frequencies of brain waves — fast-sigma and delta — are directly associated with learning a finger-tapping task similar to typing or playing the piano.
A recent study discovers a similar pattern on a visual task in which 15 volunteers were trained to spot a hidden texture amid an obscuring pattern of lines.
It’s a bit like an abstracted game of “Where’s Waldo” but such training is not merely an academic exercise, said Takeo Watanabe, Ph.D., professor of cognitive, linguistic, and psychological sciences at Brown.
“Perceptual learning in general has been found to improve the visual ability of patients who have some decline of function due to aging,” Watanabe said.
Read more: http://psychcentral.com/news/2013/11/11/sleep-helps-brain-learn-visual-tasks/61888.html
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Ha! =)
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