Role of Post-Learning Sleep in the Recognition Memory for Faces and Scenes

Research suggests that post-learning sleep benefits recognition of declarative memories when compared with partial sleep deprivation. The deprivation of sleep hinders with the transfer of hippocampal memories to the neocortex while sleep promotes this transfer. The present study tries to evaluate whether recognition memory for faces and scenes are benefitted by post-learning sleep over sleep deprivation. Additionally, we were interested in testing the effects of stimuli (face, scene) valence (positive, negative, neutral) on recognition memory. The present study used a repeated measure design where each subject was tested across nights of sleep and sleep deprivation. Twelve males categorized pictures of faces and scenes as valence or neutral at learning that was followed by eight hours of sleep or sleep deprivation. Thirty-six hours later, following a night of recovery sleep, subjects returned for a retrieval session where they made old/new judgments for face and scene stimuli. The result of the experiment suggests that post learning sleep improves recognition memory for test stimuli and that faces significantly better recognized than scenes. Additionally, results from the present experiment suggest that valence of stimuli (face, scene) does not play a decisive role in the recognition of faces and scenes at retrieval.