Walker S, Gaskell M G, Knowland V C P, Fletcher F E, Cairney S A, Henderson L M
Department of Psychology, University of York, York YO10 5DD, UK.
R Soc Open Sci. 2020 Mar 25;7(3):191597. doi: 10.1098/rsos.191597. eCollection 2020 Mar.
Evidence suggests that new vocabulary undergoes a period of strengthening and integration offline, particularly during sleep. Practical questions remain, however, including whether learning closer to bedtime can optimize consolidation, and whether such an effect varies with vocabulary ability. To examine this, children aged 8-12-years-old ( 59) were trained on written novel forms (e.g. BANARA) in either the morning (long delay) or the evening (short delay). Immediately after training and the next day, lexical competition (a marker of integration) was assessed via speeded semantic decisions to neighbouring existing words (e.g. BANANA); explicit memory was measured via recognition and recall tasks. There were no main effects indicating performance changes across sleep for any task, counter to studies of spoken word learning. However, a significant interaction was found, such that children with poorer vocabulary showed stronger lexical competition on the day after learning if there was a short delay between learning and sleep. Furthermore, while poorer vocabulary was associated with slower novel word recognition speed before and after sleep for the long delay group, this association was only present sleep for the short delay group. Thus, weak vocabulary knowledge compromises novel word acquisition, and when there is a longer period of post-learning wake, this disadvantage remains after a consolidation opportunity. However, when sleep occurs soon after learning, consolidation processes can compensate for weaker encoding and permit lexical integration. These data provide preliminary suggestion that children with poorer vocabulary may benefit from learning new words closer to bedtime.
有证据表明，新词汇会在离线状态下经历一段强化和整合期，尤其是在睡眠期间。然而，实际问题依然存在，包括临近就寝时间学习是否能优化巩固过程，以及这种效果是否会因词汇能力的不同而有所变化。为了对此进行研究，对59名8至12岁的儿童进行了书面新形式（如BANARA）的训练，训练时间分为上午（长延迟）或晚上（短延迟）。在训练后立即以及第二天，通过对相邻现有单词（如BANANA）进行快速语义判断来评估词汇竞争（整合的一个标志）；通过识别和回忆任务来测量显性记忆。与口语学习的研究相反，没有主要效应表明任何任务在睡眠期间的表现有变化。然而，发现了一个显著的交互作用，即词汇量较差的儿童在学习与睡眠之间延迟较短的情况下，学习后第二天的词汇竞争更强。此外，虽然词汇量较差与长延迟组睡眠前后新单词识别速度较慢有关，但这种关联仅在短延迟组的睡眠期间存在。因此，薄弱的词汇知识会影响新单词的习得，并且当学习后有较长的清醒期时，在有巩固机会后这种劣势仍然存在。然而，当学习后很快入睡时，巩固过程可以弥补较弱的编码并允许词汇整合。这些数据提供了初步的建议，即词汇量较差的儿童可能会从临近就寝时间学习新单词中受益。
