Sleep inspires insight

Abstract

Insight denotes a mental restructuring that leads to a sudden gain of explicit knowledge allowing qualitatively changed behaviour. Anecdotal reports on scientific discovery suggest that pivotal insights can be gained through sleep. Sleep consolidates recent memories and, concomitantly, could allow insight by changing their representational structure. Here we show a facilitating role of sleep in a process of insight. Subjects performed a cognitive task requiring the learning of stimulus-response sequences, in which they improved gradually by increasing response speed across task blocks. However, they could also improve abruptly after gaining insight into a hidden abstract rule underlying all sequences. Initial training establishing a task representation was followed by 8 h of nocturnal sleep, nocturnal wakefulness, or daytime wakefulness. At subsequent retesting, more than twice as many subjects gained insight into the hidden rule after sleep as after wakefulness, regardless of time of day. Sleep did not enhance insight in the absence of initial training. A characteristic antecedent of sleep-related insight was revealed in a slowing of reaction times across sleep. We conclude that sleep, by restructuring new memory representations, facilitates extraction of explicit knowledge and insightful behaviour.

Cross-modal transfer of statistical information benefits from sleep

“…In fact, it is likely that all three make a contribution; immediate transfer to some extent is likely based on the studies described above, and previous evidence has supported a role for both time and sleep in consolidation of statistical learning . Our results therefore add to the growing literature on sleep-dependent or sleep-enhanced abstraction (Wagner et al 2004;Gómez et al 2006;Djonlagic et al 2009;Walker and Stickgold 2010). These data support the suggestion that SWS plays a role in abstracting common underlying statistical patterns M A N U S C R I P T…”

“…Based upon these data and a growing literature supporting the role of sleep in other forms of abstraction (Wagner et al 2004;Gómez et al 2006;Djonlagic et al 2009;Walker and Stickgold 2010), we hypothesise that sleep, and especially SWS may also facilitate the cross-modal transfer of abstract statistical knowledge.…”

Cognitive and emotional processes during dreaming: A neuroimaging view

“…2B and C. Several years ago, Revonsuo and Salmivalli proposed that ''the possible patterns of the breakdown of the binding of consciousness-the patterns of incoherent phenomenology in dreams-form an important source of information for theories of consciousness'' (Revonsuo & Salmivalli, 1995, p. 185). Moreover, consistent with evidence that insightful behavior and problem solving can benefit from one night of sleep (Wagner, Gais, Haider, Verleger, & Born, 2004), the spontaneous restructuring of mental features observed in the dreams also appear to stimulate creative processes (Schredl & Erlacher, 2007) and are often used as a source of inspiration for artists and other creative minds.…”

Neuroscience and education: prime time to build the bridge

“…In addition, a large body of knowledge has accumulated that shows that sleep enhances memory processing and, conversely, that sleep disruption can result in major learning deficits 12,13 . In humans, sleep after memory acquisition has been shown to benefit the consolidation 14 , restructuring 15 , generalization and selective remembering of memories 16 . These psychological discoveries have been paralleled by human imaging studies showing that the reactivation and neuroanatomical reorganization of memory traces are favored by sleep and proportional to learning 12 .…”