PRIMING OUR BRAINS TO LEARN WHILE SLEEPING 2
Priming Our Brains to Learn While Sleeping
The news article by Megan Shmidt entitled New Study Says We Can Prime Our Brains to
Learn while We Sleep, presents novel research breakthrough that indicates the possibility of
learning new information while sleeping. Despite the initial shock one experience after reading
the item, the tone of this article is straightforward and reasonable. Although the author
extensively borrows from scientific study to support her claims, the article omits the control
group that was used in the specific study of the original scientific article. Including the control
group, together with the obtained results, would have significantly helped the author convince
the target audience and make them lean on her side of an argument.
The original scientific article, Implicit Vocabulary Learning during Sleep is bound to
Slow-Wave Peaks, was published in Current Biology by Züst, Ruch, Wiest, and Henke. Although
the existing research is inconclusive, the evidence presented is convincing and promising
practical usage in the future. The study hypothesizes that the up-state during the slow-wave are
suitable for verbal learning as it corresponds with active neural stimulation in the brain (Zust et
al., 2019). The author uses a series of pseudonyms and associated with Germany words during
slow-wave sleep. After waking, the pseudonyms were presented to the subjects, and they were
required to recall. According to the findings, there was an increased chance that a new semantic
association between these series of words was formed and retained. The research showed a close
association of words learned during sleeping, specifically words that coincided with slow-wave
peaks. Hence, the study confirmed that people could learn new words and vocabularies while
taking a nap.
The scientific article outlines two limitations, namely the lack of control over
confounding variables that may have interfered with the experiment and the inability to
