We now know sleep has profound implications for lots of human tasks. Sleep improves our memory, and enables us to consolidate new information with the knowledge we already have. Sleep also changes the quality of stored info. We are more likely to adjust our memories slightly so that they fit better with previous experiences after sleeping. And we are more likely to avoid misleading background information in making decisions and judgements. But sleep also has a positive effect on problem solving.
It’s common to feel you can gain inspiration for something overnight. You may have even woken up in the middle of the night with the solution to a problem, whether it be trivial or life-changing. These intuitions turn out to be absolutely correct.
METHOD: Volunteers a set of problems with 3 words. The task was to discover another word that related to all 3. Half the problems were easy, and half were hard. One (“sleep”) group saw the problems in the evening and then tried to solve them again the next morning. Another (“wake”) group saw the problems in the morning then reattempted them in the evening. There were extra groups that just did the problems in the morning or the evening.
RESULTS: For the easy problems, the wake group solved the problems slightly more effectively. For the hard problems, the sleep group improved substantially in their discovery of the answer.
STUDY2: 2 sets of related problems: Those who went to sleep overnight between attempting the 2 sets of problems fared better than those who tackled them both during the day. Intriguingly, this was not due to how well the participants felt they could remember the problems nor how closely they thought the problems related to one another. Instead, improvement was at a stage involving deep and implicit restructuring of the problem information associated with sleep.
CONC: Modern theories of the neurophysiological effects of sleep on the brain are surprisingly consistent with Aristotle’s view of the active role of sleep. Current theory is that sleep enables the transfer of information between the hippocampus and the neocortex. If we can effectively incorporate solutions from past problems into our thinking, we’re better equipped to tackle new problems.
This research gives us some guidance on improving our day-to-day approach to solving problems. If it is a difficult problem, set it aside overnight, and return to it the next day. Even if you’ve already made a complex decision, reappraising it briefly the next day is more likely to result in the best choice you can make. “Sleep on it” is now scientifically supported advice.
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