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

在成年人中，睡眠在巩固记忆中扮演着重要的角色，这一点已经得到了充分的证实。睡眠对记忆处理的好处包括，例如，加强现有的记忆，促进对以前遇到的问题的新见解，以及促进知识转移。然而，由于缺乏确凿的实验证据，目前尚不清楚个体发育睡眠从什么时候开始有利于特定的记忆过程。在两个6个月和12个月大的婴儿的延迟模仿实验中，将考察睡眠对陈述性记忆的三个基本方面的影响：学习事件的保持、记忆提取的灵活性和知识的提取。为了评估睡眠对记忆的影响，将围绕婴儿的自然睡眠模式安排一次学习活动和一次测试，这样一些婴儿在学习后不久就会睡着，一些婴儿在学习事件后四个小时内不会睡着。预计睡眠将促进陈述性记忆的所有三个方面。此外，我们预计，与6个月大的婴儿相比，12个月大的婴儿睡眠对记忆的影响会更强，这是因为婴儿早期的睡眠结构迅速成熟。

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.