School Performance Depends on the Sleep

The scientists from the University of Tübingen in Germany claim that the children, who get enough sleep at night, have better memory than the rest of their peers.

Processing the information While Asleep

During the time of a good night’s rest, the children process the knowledge more efficiently, turning “implicit” information into “explicit” knowledge. This fact is among the most important ones in the learning process.

The Effect of Sleep on the Brain

Explicit knowledge includes the amount of information that is stored in the human brain, while implicit knowledge includes unconscious information that people can not share with others. If a person is dominated by implicit knowledge, it means that he/she is doing something without having a clear idea how it should be done. Implicit knowledge tends to become explicit and vice versa. Before the conducted research, science had not known how night sleep affected the process.

The Sleep Study

In the process of the study, German researchers observed 28 children and adults who passed various tests that verified their explicit and implicit knowledge. In children, these figures were much better, and during sleep, the brain of the children showed a less intense slow-wave activity than that of adults. It is this activity that influenced the quality of the tests assessing explicit knowledge.