Abstract
BackgroundSleep facilitates off-line consolidation of memories, as shown for learning of motor skills in the absence of concomitant distractors. We often perform complex tasks focusing our attention mostly on one single part of them. However, we are equally able to skillfully perform other concurrent tasks. One may even improve performance on disregarded parts of complex tasks, which were learned implicitly. In the present study we investigated the role of sleep in the off-line consolidation of procedural skills when attention is diverted from the procedural task because of interference from a concurrent task.Methodology/Principal FindingsWe used a dual-task paradigm containing (i) procedural serial reaction time task (SRTT), which was labeled as subordinate and unimportant and (ii) declarative word-pair association task (WPAT), performed concomitantly. The WPAT served as a masked distractor to SRTT and was strongly reinforced by the instructions. One experimental and three control groups were tested. The experimental group was re-tested after two nights of sleep (sleep group, SG). The first control group had sleep deprivation on the first post-learning night (nighttime-awake group, NA), the second control group was tested in the morning and then re-tested after 12-hours (daytime-awake group, DA); the third one had the same assignments as DA but with a subsequent, instead of a concomitant, WPAT (daytime-awake-subsequent-WPAT group, DAs). We found SRTT performance gains in SG but not in NA and DA groups. Furthermore, SG reached similar learning gains in SRTT as the DAs group, which gained in SRTT performance because of post-training interference from the declarative task.Conclusions/SignificanceThe results demonstrate that sleep allows off-line consolidation, which is resistant to deteriorating effects of a reinforced distractor on the implicit procedural learning and allowing for gains which are consistent with those produced when inhibited declarative memories of SRTT do not compete with procedural ones.
Highlights
Sleep following learning of procedural tasks without distraction by declarative tasks [1,2,3,4,5,6,7], and learning of declarative tasks [8,9,10] leads to an improved performance at a delayed retrieval testing [9,11,12,13,14]
Conclusions/Significance: The results demonstrate that sleep allows off-line consolidation, which is resistant to deteriorating effects of a reinforced distractor on the implicit procedural learning and allowing for gains which are consistent with those produced when inhibited declarative memories of serial reaction time task (SRTT) do not compete with procedural ones
We are able to learn and improve performance. This phenomenon has been addressed by previous studies adopting dual task paradigms where, e.g., a simple tone counting task was used as a distractor while subjects performed a serial reaction time task (SRTT) [18,19]
Summary
Sleep following learning of procedural tasks without distraction by declarative tasks [1,2,3,4,5,6,7], and learning of declarative tasks [8,9,10] leads to an improved performance at a delayed retrieval testing [9,11,12,13,14]. Unnoticed by the participant the sequence of cue positions follows a fixed serial pattern leading to decreased reaction times in the fixed sequence as compared to reaction times to random sequences of cue positions. This task has been used widely in isolated form and as part of a dual-task setting to assess mechanisms of implicit skill acquisition [19,20,21,22,23,24]. In the present study we investigated the role of sleep in the off-line consolidation of procedural skills when attention is diverted from the procedural task because of interference from a concurrent task
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