Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioral Neurobiology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
Department of Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, Munich, Germany.
Sleep. 2018 Oct 1;41(10). doi: 10.1093/sleep/zsy155.
Solving a novel problem and finding innovative solutions requires a flexible and creative recombination of prior knowledge. It is thought that setting a problem aside before giving it another try aids problem-solving. The underlying mechanisms of such an incubation period could include unconscious processing that fosters spreading activation along associated networks and the restructuring of problem representations. Recently, it has been suggested that sleep may also support problem-solving by supporting the transformation and restructuring of memory elements. Since the effect of sleep on problem-solving has been mainly tested using the Remote Associates Test, we chose three different tasks-classical riddles, visual change detection, and anagrams-to examine various aspects of problem-solving and to pinpoint task-specific prerequisites for effects of sleep or incubation to emerge. Sixty-two participants were given two attempts to solve the problems. Both attempts either occurred consecutively or were spaced apart by a 3-hour incubation interval that was spent awake or asleep. We found that a period of incubation positively affected solutions rates in classical riddles, but not in visual change detection or anagram solving. Contrary to our hypothesis, spending the incubation period asleep, did not yield any additional benefit. Our study thus supports the notion that a period of letting a problem rest is beneficial for its solution and confines the role of sleep to memory transformations that do not directly impact on problem-solving ability.
解决新问题和寻找创新解决方案需要灵活和创造性地重新组合先前的知识。人们认为，在再次尝试解决问题之前，将问题搁置一旁有助于问题的解决。这种潜伏期的潜在机制可能包括无意识的处理，促进沿着相关网络的扩散激活以及问题表示的重构。最近，有人认为睡眠也可以通过支持记忆元素的转换和重构来支持解决问题。由于睡眠对解决问题的影响主要是通过远程联想测试来测试的，因此我们选择了三个不同的任务 - 经典谜语、视觉变化检测和字谜 - 来检验解决问题的各个方面，并确定睡眠或潜伏期影响出现的特定任务前提条件。62 名参与者有两次尝试解决问题的机会。这两种尝试要么连续进行，要么通过 3 小时的潜伏期间隔开，在此期间保持清醒或睡眠。我们发现潜伏期会对经典谜语的解题率产生积极影响，但不会对视觉变化检测或字谜解决产生影响。与我们的假设相反，在潜伏期内睡觉并不能带来任何额外的好处。因此，我们的研究支持这样一种观点，即让问题休息一段时间对问题的解决是有益的，并将睡眠的作用限制在不会直接影响解决问题能力的记忆转换上。
