Northwestern University, Department of Psychology, Evanston, IL, 60208, USA.
Neuropsychologia. 2024 Apr 15;196:108840. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2024.108840. Epub 2024 Feb 28.
One can be aware of the effort needed to memorize a new fact or to recall the name of a new acquaintance. Because of experiences like this, learning can seem to have only two components, encoding information and, after some delay, retrieving information. To the contrary, learning entails additional, intervening steps that sometimes are hidden from the learner. For firmly acquiring fact and event knowledge in particular, learners are generally not cognizant of the necessity of offline consolidation. The memories that persist to be available reliably at a later time, according to the present conceptualization, are the ones we repeatedly rehearse and integrate with other knowledge, whether we do this intentionally or unknowingly, awake or asleep. This article examines the notion that learning is not a function of waking brain activity alone. What happens in the brain while we sleep also impacts memory storage, and consequently is a critical component of learning. The idea that memories can change over time and become enduring has long been present in memory research and is foundational for the concept of memory consolidation. Nevertheless, the notion that memory consolidation happens during sleep faced much resistance before eventually being firmly established. Research is still needed to elucidate the operation and repercussions of repeated reactivation during sleep. Comprehensively understanding how offline memory reactivation contributes to learning is vital for both theoretical and practical considerations.
人们可以意识到记住一个新事实或回忆一个新相识的名字所需的努力。由于有这样的经历，学习似乎只有两个组成部分，即编码信息和在一定延迟后检索信息。相反，学习需要额外的、中间的步骤，这些步骤有时对学习者来说是隐藏的。特别是为了牢固地获得事实和事件知识，学习者通常没有意识到离线巩固的必要性。根据目前的概念，那些能够可靠地在以后的时间持续存在的记忆，是我们反复练习和与其他知识整合的记忆，无论我们是否有意或无意识、清醒或睡眠。本文探讨了学习不仅仅是清醒大脑活动的功能这一观点。当我们睡觉时，大脑中发生的事情也会影响记忆存储，因此是学习的关键组成部分。记忆可以随着时间的推移而改变并变得持久，这个观念在记忆研究中很早就存在了，也是记忆巩固概念的基础。然而，记忆巩固发生在睡眠中的观点在最终被确立之前，面临了很大的阻力。仍需要研究来阐明睡眠期间反复重新激活的运作和影响。全面了解离线记忆再激活如何促进学习，对于理论和实践考虑都是至关重要的。
