Generalization of word meanings during infant sleep

Manuela Friedrich; Ines Wilhelm; Jan Born; Angela D. Friederici

doi:10.1038/ncomms7004

Generalization of word meanings during infant sleep

Manuela Friedrich^*, Ines Wilhelm, Jan Born, Angela D. Friederici

^*Corresponding author for this work

162 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Sleep consolidates memory and promotes generalization in adults, but it is still unknown to what extent the rapidly growing infant memory benefits from sleep. Here we show that during sleep the infant brain reorganizes recent memories and creates semantic knowledge from individual episodic experiences. Infants aged between 9 and 16 months were given the opportunity to encode both objects as specific word meanings and categories as general word meanings. Event-related potentials indicate that, initially, infants acquire only the specific but not the general word meanings. About 1.5 h later, infants who napped during the retention period, but not infants who stayed awake, remember the specific word meanings and, moreover, successfully generalize words to novel category exemplars. Independently of age, the semantic generalization effect is correlated with sleep spindle activity during the nap, suggesting that sleep spindles are involved in infant sleep-dependent brain plasticity.

Original language	English
Article number	6004
Journal	Nature Communications
Volume	6
ISSN	1751-8628
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms7004
Publication status	Published - 29.01.2015

Funding

We thank all families who participated in this study. Special thanks to Christina Rügen who recorded the infant ERP data, to Sven Genkel who drew up the visual stimulus material and to Maren Grigutsch who provided software tools and visualized the whole-head ERP data. The study was supported by grants from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft to M.F. (FR 1336/2-1), I.W. (SFB 654 ‘Plasticity and Sleep’; Wi 4059/1-1), and J.B. (BO 854/8-1), and by a grant from the European Research Council (ERC-2010-360 AdG 20100407) awarded to A.D.F.

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being

DFG Research Classification Scheme

2.23-01 Developmental Neurobiology

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10.1038/ncomms7004

Cite this

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title = "Generalization of word meanings during infant sleep",

abstract = "Sleep consolidates memory and promotes generalization in adults, but it is still unknown to what extent the rapidly growing infant memory benefits from sleep. Here we show that during sleep the infant brain reorganizes recent memories and creates semantic knowledge from individual episodic experiences. Infants aged between 9 and 16 months were given the opportunity to encode both objects as specific word meanings and categories as general word meanings. Event-related potentials indicate that, initially, infants acquire only the specific but not the general word meanings. About 1.5 h later, infants who napped during the retention period, but not infants who stayed awake, remember the specific word meanings and, moreover, successfully generalize words to novel category exemplars. Independently of age, the semantic generalization effect is correlated with sleep spindle activity during the nap, suggesting that sleep spindles are involved in infant sleep-dependent brain plasticity.",

author = "Manuela Friedrich and Ines Wilhelm and Jan Born and Friederici, \{Angela D.\}",

year = "2015",

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T1 - Generalization of word meanings during infant sleep

AU - Friedrich, Manuela

AU - Wilhelm, Ines

AU - Born, Jan

AU - Friederici, Angela D.

PY - 2015/1/29

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N2 - Sleep consolidates memory and promotes generalization in adults, but it is still unknown to what extent the rapidly growing infant memory benefits from sleep. Here we show that during sleep the infant brain reorganizes recent memories and creates semantic knowledge from individual episodic experiences. Infants aged between 9 and 16 months were given the opportunity to encode both objects as specific word meanings and categories as general word meanings. Event-related potentials indicate that, initially, infants acquire only the specific but not the general word meanings. About 1.5 h later, infants who napped during the retention period, but not infants who stayed awake, remember the specific word meanings and, moreover, successfully generalize words to novel category exemplars. Independently of age, the semantic generalization effect is correlated with sleep spindle activity during the nap, suggesting that sleep spindles are involved in infant sleep-dependent brain plasticity.

AB - Sleep consolidates memory and promotes generalization in adults, but it is still unknown to what extent the rapidly growing infant memory benefits from sleep. Here we show that during sleep the infant brain reorganizes recent memories and creates semantic knowledge from individual episodic experiences. Infants aged between 9 and 16 months were given the opportunity to encode both objects as specific word meanings and categories as general word meanings. Event-related potentials indicate that, initially, infants acquire only the specific but not the general word meanings. About 1.5 h later, infants who napped during the retention period, but not infants who stayed awake, remember the specific word meanings and, moreover, successfully generalize words to novel category exemplars. Independently of age, the semantic generalization effect is correlated with sleep spindle activity during the nap, suggesting that sleep spindles are involved in infant sleep-dependent brain plasticity.

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ER -

Generalization of word meanings during infant sleep

Abstract

Funding

UN SDGs

DFG Research Classification Scheme

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CRC 654: Plasticity and Sleep

Cite this

Generalization of word meanings during infant sleep

Abstract

Funding

UN SDGs

DFG Research Classification Scheme

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CRC 654: Plasticity and Sleep

Cite this