Facilitated Recall Following REM And NREM Naps.

A novel procedure was used to assess (a) the differential effects of REM and SWS on retention and (b) whether these sleep stages enhanced recall for different types of information. In a 2 × 2 factorial design, subjects were given non-meaningful and meaningful verbal learning tasks. Learning took place either early in the morning or late in the afternoon. Following learning subjects either slept or remained awake for a 2-hr retention interval, after which recall was assessed. Sleep for morning subjects was composed of stages 1, 2 and rapid eye movement sleep while sleep for afternoon subjects was composed of stages 1, 2 and slow wave sleep. Retention for both tasks was better following periods of sleep than following periods of wakefulness but no differences in recall were observed after REM vs. NREM naps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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