After Being Challenged by a Video Game Problem, Sleep Increases the Chance to Solve It

Abstract

In the past years many studies have demonstrated the role of sleep on memory consolidation. It is known that sleeping after learning a declarative or non-declarative task, is better than remaining awake. Furthermore, there are reports of a possible role for dreams in consolidation of declarative memories. Other studies have reported the effect of naps on memory consolidation. With similar protocols, another set of studies indicated that sleep has a role in creativity and problem-solving. Here we hypothesised that sleep can increase the likelihood of solving problems. After struggling to solve a video game problem, subjects who took a nap (n = 14) were almost twice as likely to solve it when compared to the wake control group (n = 15). It is interesting to note that, in the nap group 9 out 14 subjects engaged in slow-wave sleep (SWS) and all solved the problem. Surprisingly, we did not find a significant involvement of Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep in this task. Slow-wave sleep is believed to be crucial for the transfer of memory-related information to the neocortex and implement intentions. Sleep can benefit problem-solving through the generalisation of newly encoded information and abstraction of the gist. In conclusion, our results indicate that sleep, even a nap, can potentiate the solution of problems that involve logical reasoning. Thus, sleep's function seems to go beyond memory consolidation to include managing of everyday-life events.

Sleep promotes analogical transfer in problem solving

“…Experiencing a novel but related problem can then activate these previously stored relations between problem concepts and solution structures (Cai et al, 2009;Lewis & Durrant, 2011;Payne, 2014). As a consequence, broader semantic activations in long-term memory can be observed (Beijamini et al, 2014;Sio et al, 2013), enabling newly experienced problems to more effectively access consolidated associations in a schema that can apply to the current task.…”

“…Previous studies of sleep have not tested transfer for complex problems with low surface similarities (e.g., Beijamini, Pereira, Cini, & Louzada, 2014;Cai, Mednick, Harrison, Kanady, & Mednick, Chatburn, Lushington, & Kohler, 2014). Further, we distinguished whether any facilitatory effects of sleep for problem solving were captured by subjective memory of the source problems or recognition of structural similarities between source and target problems (Experiment 1).…”

Effects of sleep on the realization of complex plans

“…the exact plan), but rather acts on a higher level of organization by structuring the large number of single steps of the action plan and shaping it for more efficient execution. This idea is corroborated by previous findings indicating that sleep can reorganize newly encoded memories (Landmann et al ., ), such that the extraction of gist is facilitated (Lutz et al ., ), relational inferences can be drawn (Ellenbogen et al ., ) and even complex problems are more likely to be solved (Beijamini et al ., ; Sio et al ., ). Interestingly, the mental simulation of future scenarios, which is an essential component of planning complex behaviours, activates hippocampal and prefrontal cortical areas (Andrews‐Hanna et al ., ; Schacter et al ., ), among others, which are regarded as key candidate brain areas involved in the reorganization of information during sleep.…”

Neuropsychiatry of creativity

“…The former has received considerable attention in the past, even if now avoided or elided by modern neuroscience. More recently the importance of sleep in enhancing creative problem solving for items that were primed before sleep has been examined [21]. This seems to be particularly the case for REM sleep and not to be the result of selective improvements in memory [22].…”