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Study Suggests You Can Learn New Things In Your Sleep

Posted by samzenpus on from the I-know-kung-fu dept.

bbianca127 writes "Researchers studied classical conditioning in 55 study participants while sleeping or awake. According to the article, 'Classical conditioning teaches a person or animal to associate one stimulus with another.' The researchers paired tones with scents; when they played a tone, they would let out a particular scent while the participants were sleeping. They found that the participants would make the association between the tones and scents even while awake."

10 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. I knew it! by lazybeam · · Score: 4, Funny

    My sleepy lectures weren't wasting time after all.

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  2. I only make one tone and scent when I sleep by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    And nobody wants to learn it.

    1. Re:I only make one tone and scent when I sleep by sjames · · Score: 3, Funny

      Ah, the forlorn single note of the vuvuzela and mice quietly gagging.

  3. Omelette... by QuasiSteve · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...du fromage!

    1. Re:Omelette... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      This is not offtopic. It's an obscure reference to Dexter's Lab, and the first thing I thought of when I read this headline.

  4. Simpsons did it. by jtownatpunk.net · · Score: 4, Funny

    Marge: Homer, has the weight loss tape reduced your appetite?
    Homer: Ah, lamentably no. My gastronomic rapacity knows no satieties.

  5. Re:in some lectures staying up does not help much by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Definition Lecture were information passes from the Lecturer's notes to the student's notes without passing through the mind of either.

  6. Learning new things? by c0lo · · Score: 3
    New things? Really? Wake me up when they managed to teach me string theory in my sleep so well that I can recall it with a smell or tone while awake.

    My point: they discovered that, while asleep, the brain is able to reinforce and create relations between the things/experiences learned while awake? If so, how is this new?

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    Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
  7. Like ... by PPH · · Score: 3, Funny

    ... rolling over onto morning wood is uncomfortable as hell.

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    Have gnu, will travel.
  8. It's True by RazorSharp · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is an anecdote but it's a fairly convincing one:

    I once had a roommate who was a sports fanatic who worked as a server in a sports bar/restaurant at the time. He would listened to sports radio while he slept - usually it was the west coast baseball games (we're in EST) - and he claimed that the broadcasters would basically narrate his dreams of baseball. He knew most the players so if he heard something like, "Bonds hits it to center field, he slides to first and is safe," it's something he could envision realistically.

    It's easy to dismiss this as a wild claim he made, but the proof was in the pudding. He could, with confidence, talk about the games the next day before hearing/seeing anything about them. He knew the scores, the big plays, damn near everything as well as if he had watched it on TV. His customers ate it up - they'd love to put him to the test before the highlights would show up on the tube.

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