科學發現:邊睡覺邊背單詞不是難事

　It is one thing to learn a new piece of information, such as a new phone number or a new word, but quite another to get your brain to file it away so it is available when you need it.

學習新知識——比如記個電話號碼或者一個新單詞——是一回事，而將它們存進大腦並在需要時調用就完全是另外一回事了。

A new study published in the Journal of Neuroscience by researchers at the University of York and Harvard Medical School suggests that sleep may help to do both. The scientists found that sleep helps people to remember a newly learned word and incorporate new vocabulary into their "mental lexicon".

英國約克大學和美國哈佛醫學院聯合在《神經科學雜誌》刊登的研究論文稱，睡眠能夠兼修學習能力和記憶能力。科學家們發現，睡眠可以幫助人們記住新學到單詞，並將其納入“人腦詞典”。

During the study, researchers taught volunteers new words in the evening, followed by an immediate test. The volunteers slept overnight in the laboratory while their brain activity was recorded using an electroencephalogram. A test the following morning revealed that they could remember more words than they did immediately after learning them, and they could recognize them faster demonstrating that sleep had strengthened the new memories.

　在研究中，研究人員在晚上教會志願者新單詞，隨後立即測試。然後志願者在實驗室入睡，研究人員同時檢測腦電波以觀察他們的大腦活躍度。次日早晨的測試結果證明，志願者睡後記住的單詞比剛學完記住的單詞還要多，並且能很快回想起新學單詞，這表明睡眠有助於加強新記憶。

This did not occur in a control group of volunteers who were trained in the morning and re-tested in the evening, with no sleep in between. An examination of the sleep volunteers' brainwaves showed that deep sleep (slow-wave sleep) rather than rapid eye movement (REM) sleep or light sleep helped in strengthening the new memories.

而另一組受控志願者在早上學習，晚上測試，中間沒有睡眠，研究人員發現這種學習效果差強人意。而對睡眠人員的腦電波進行監測後發現，相較於睡眠淺的志願者，睡眠較深的志願者的新增記憶得到了更有效的鞏固。

These results highlight the importance of sleep and the underlying brain processes for expanding vocabulary. Lead author Jakke Tamminen, said: "New memories are only really useful if you can connect them to information you already know." he said their study identifies the brain activity during sleep that organizes new memories and makes those vital connections with existing knowledge.

這些研究結果突出了睡眠的重要性，並解釋了擴充詞彙量的腦部機制。研究論文主要撰稿人Jakke Tamminen稱：“如果你能將新增記憶和自己已有的知識儲備聯繫起來，新增記憶纔算真正有用。”他還說他們的研究證實了人們在睡覺時大腦組織新記憶並將其與已有知識聯繫起來。