The Influence of Sleep on Declarative Memory in the First Year of Life

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In adults, it is well established that sleep plays an important role in memory consolidation. Benefits of sleep for memory processing include, for example, the strengthening of existing memories, facilitation of new insights into previously encountered problems, and promotion of knowledge transfer. However, due to the lack of conclusive experimental evidence, it is currently unknown at what point during ontogeny sleep starts to benefit specific memory processes. In two deferred imitation experiments with 6- and 12-month-old infants, the influence of sleep on three fundamental aspects of declarative memory will be investigated: retention of a learning event, flexibility of memory retrieval, and abstraction of knowledge. To assess the effect of sleep on memory, a learning event and a test session will be scheduled around infants natural sleep patterns such that some infants will sleep shortly after learning and some infants will not sleep within four hours after the learning event. It is expected that sleep will facilitate all three aspects of declarative memory. Furthermore, we expect the effect of sleep on memory to be stronger in 12-month-old infants in comparison to 6-month-old infants due to the rapidly maturing sleep architecture during early infancy.