Mar. 20, 2013 — Sleep plays an important role in the
brain's ability to consolidate learning when two new potentially competing
tasks are learned in the same day, research at the University of Chicago
Other studies have shown that sleep consolidates learning
for a new task. The new study, which measured starlings' ability to recognize
new songs, shows that learning a second task can undermine the performance of a
previously learned task. But this study is the first to show that a good
night's sleep helps the brain retain both new memories.
Starlings provide an excellent model for studying memory
because of fundamental biological similarities between avian and mammalian
brains, scholars wrote in the paper, "Sleep Consolidation of Interfering
Auditory Memories in Starlings," published in the current online edition
of Psychological Science.
"These observations demonstrate that sleep
consolidation enhances retention of interfering experiences, facilitating
daytime learning and the subsequent formation of stable memories," the
authors wrote.
The paper was written by Timothy Brawn, a graduate
researcher in psychology at UChicago; Howard Nusbaum, professor of psychology;
and Daniel Margoliash, professor of psychology, organismal biology and anatomy.
Nusbaum is a leading expert on learning, and Margoliash is a pioneer in the
research of brain function and its development in birds.
For the study, the researchers conducted two experiments
using 24 starlings each. They played two recorded songs from other starlings
and tested the birds' ability to recognize and repeat the two songs. After learning
to recognize the two songs, the birds were later trained to recognize and
perform a different pair of songs.
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