posted by bb_bermuda on November 25, 2008 | 0 comments
Just ran across this curious little article in Physorg. The article seems confused by what constitute "words" and "characters". My guess is that the students were looking at characters composed of two radicals.
Very good news for those of us who like to nap, at least:
First, they taught 20 English-speaking college students lists of Chinese words spelled with two characters - such as sister, mother, maid. Then half the students took a nap, being monitored to be sure they didn't move from slow-wave sleep into the REM stage. Upon awakening, they took a multiple-choice test of Chinese words they'd never seen before. The nappers did much better at automatically learning that the first of the two-pair characters in the words they'd memorized earlier always meant the same thing - female, for example. So they also were more likely than non-nappers to choose that a new word containing that character meant "princess" and not "ape." "The nap group has essentially teased out what's going on," Fishbein concludes.http://www.physorg.com/news146761238.html I will be resting more easily.
bonita.delmonte on November 25, 2008 | reply
I'm going to have to re-evaluate my experience at BCLU then. Little did I know that sleeping through their courses was actually doing me good....It would be interesting to read the full study, since there could be a lot of other factors going on. It sounds like a nicely controlled test though. I personally find myself remembering things best when I study intensely for about 30 minutes and then revisit the materials later in the same day.Maybe I can use this to get corporate naptime introduced at my company.