I was searching through Discovery Magazine and I read this interesting experiment titled, “Sleeping Brains Understand words.” The experiment was conducted by a group of French neuroscientists. In the experiment “Volunteers were asked to perform a word categorization task: spoken words were played to them and they had to press a button with their left hand (say) if the word was a kind of animal, or press a button with their right hand if it was an object (Neuroskeptic).”
The twist to this experiment was that it was conducted in a quiet, dark room, so it could help the participants fall asleep. To actively continue the task while the participants were sleeping they had been connected to EEG machines “to record brain electrical activity” before the experiment commenced. Because of the EEG data they recorded while awake, neuroscientists were able to track whether they were using the right side of their brain or the left side. (This is important to know because the left hand is controlled with the left side of the brain and vice versa).
The awesome thing to note is that the sleeping brains produced the “correct responses to the stimuli”, or how an awake and active brain would respond. This led to the conclusion that the brain can perform a high- level language task while asleep.
After reading this article, I was utterly astounded. I started to wonder what other activities one may be able to purse while asleep. I wondered if listening to languages while asleep could affectively help someone learn a language. I also wondered if this could be an affective studying technique in general. If this turned out to be an effective strategy it could probably increase retention rates incredibly.
Neuroskeptic. “Sleeping Brains Understand Words.” Discovery Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Oct. 2014. <http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2014/10/03/sleeping-brains-understand-words/#.VEnXxFXF_1U>.