Department of Psychology, University of York, UK.
Dev Sci. 2012 Sep;15(5):674-87. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2012.01172.x. Epub 2012 Aug 9.
Although the acquisition of a novel word is apparently rapid, adult research suggests that integration of novel and existing knowledge (measured by engagement in lexical competition) requires sleep-associated consolidation. We present the first investigation of whether a similar time-course dissociation characterizes word learning across development. Consistent with previous research but counter to adults, 7-12-year-olds showed sleep-associated consolidation effects in declarative but not procedural memory. Nevertheless, the relationship between sleep and word learning in children was remarkably similar to the pattern for adults. Following exposure to nonword competitors (e.g. biscal) in the a.m. or p.m., children's ability to recognize and recall the nonwords improved only after sleep (after approximately 12-hrs for the p.m. group and 24-hrs for the a.m. group), with performance stable 1 week later. Novel nonwords only induced lexical competition effects after sleep. These findings suggest that children utilize a dual memory system when acquiring and integrating new vocabulary and highlight sleep as integral to this process. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtube_gdata&v=2UNuKCAakOk&gl=GB.
虽然习得一个新单词显然是迅速的，但成人研究表明，新单词和已有知识的整合（通过词汇竞争的参与来衡量）需要睡眠相关的巩固。我们首次研究了在发展过程中，单词学习是否具有类似的时间过程分离特征。与之前的研究一致，但与成人不同的是，7-12 岁的儿童在陈述性记忆中表现出与睡眠相关的巩固效应，但在程序性记忆中没有。然而，儿童的睡眠和单词学习之间的关系与成人的模式非常相似。在上午或下午接触非词竞争者（例如 biscal）后，只有在睡眠后（下午组大约 12 小时后，上午组 24 小时后），儿童才能提高对非词的识别和回忆能力，一周后，儿童的表现仍然稳定。只有在睡眠后，新的非词才会引发词汇竞争效应。这些发现表明，儿童在获取和整合新词汇时使用双重记忆系统，并强调睡眠是这一过程的重要组成部分。本文的视频摘要可在 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtube_gdata&v=2UNuKCAakOk&gl=GB 观看。
