睡眠学习

睡眠学习是一种试图在睡眠中学习知识的技巧。比如睡觉时放录音就是一种典型的方法。但实际上其有效性并未得到科学验证，一些早期的研究甚至认为这种方法根本就是无稽之谈^[1]^[2]，但后来有研究发现人脑确实会对睡觉时外部的刺激产生反应^[3]^[4]。

历史

1927年，美国人阿洛伊斯·班傑明·薩里格（Alois Benjamin Saliger）发明了一种叫做「精神電話」（Psycho-Phone）的睡眠学习法，宣称人的大脑在睡眠时最易接受指令^[5]。

1956年查理·西蒙（Charles W. Simon）和威廉·埃蒙斯（William H. Emmons）的脑电图研究发现：如果没有α波出现，那么睡觉时给予的刺激材料就不可能在醒来后被回忆起来。但是一旦α波出现，那么睡眠者就应该要清醒了。所以睡眠学习根本不现实^[6]^[7]。2012年，魏茨曼科學研究所的研究者表示：“睡眠时人类可以强化之前学到的知识”，而且会对外部刺激（如气味）作出反应，“但能否获取新的知识仍是一个未解之谜”^[8]^[9]。

参考文献

^ Ackerman, Jennifer. Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream. Houghton Mifflin Books. 2007. ISBN 0-618-18758-8. p. 171 "But most scientist agree that learning during sleep--that is actively acquiring new knowledge--is probably impossible. Certainly, attempts to teach slumbering adult subjects vocabulary or foreign languages or lists of items has failed miserably."
^ Turkington, Carol. 12 Steps to a Better Memory. Simon and Schuste. 2003. ISBN 0-7434-7575-5. p. 9 "While it is popularly believed that a person can learn and remember while sleeping, in fact research has shown that learning does not take place while you are sound asleep...However, there is some evidence suggesting that you can learn while you are very drowsy, or even in a very light sleep. The material must be presented at just the right time; if you are not sleepy enough, the material will wake you up, and if you're deeply asleep, the materials won't make an impression at all. In addition, complex material involving reasoning or understanding can't be learned while in a drowsy state."
^ Stromberg, Joseph. Experiments Show We Really Can Learn While We Sleep. smithsonianmag.com. Smithsonian magazine. June 26, 2012 [November 18, 2015]. （原始内容存档于2021-04-24）.
^ Learning while you sleep may be possible. The Telegraph. 2014 [2014-12-13]. （原始内容存档于2014-12-18）. Once the participants were asleep, the testing continued but with an entirely new list of words to ensure that responses would require the extraction of word meaning rather than a simpler pairing between stimulus and response. Brain activity showed that the participants continued to respond accurately, although more slowly, even as they lay completely motionless and unaware.
^ Psycho-Phone. The New Yorker. 1933 [2010-11-18]. （原始内容存档于2019-08-16）. Well, sir, since 1927, Mr. Saliger has sold more than 2500 Psycho-phones ...
^ Fromm, Erika; Ronald E. Shor. Hypnosis. Aldine/Atherton. 1972 [2017-09-06]. ISBN 978-0-202-30856-2. 020230856. （原始内容存档于2019-08-13）. p. 78 Referring to Charles W. Simon and William H. Emmons EEG, Consciousness, and Sleep （页面存档备份，存于互联网档案馆）, Science, 1956, 124, 1066-1069.
^ Kleitman, Nathaniel. Sleep and Wakefulness. University of Chicago Press. 1987 [2017-09-06]. ISBN 0-226-44073-7. （原始内容存档于2019-08-18）. Page 125
^ Arzi, A.; Shedlesky, L.; Ben-Shaul, M.; Nasser, K.; Oksenberg, A.; Hairston, I. S.; Sobel, N. Humans can learn new information during sleep. Nature Neuroscience. 2012, 15 (10): 1460–1465. PMID 22922782. doi:10.1038/nn.3193.
^ Amanda L. Chan. Sleep Learning May Be Possible: Study. Huffington Post. 2012-08-29 [2012-09-03]. （原始内容存档于2017-08-23）.