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Effects on Sleep-Wake States on Reaction Times and Priming Effects in a Semantic Priming Paradigm
Margreet Kolff, Winni Hofman Ph.D, Gerard Kerkhof Ph.D, Anton Coenen Ph.D
Recently, Stickgold et al. (1999) demonstrated that subjects awakened from REM sleep
showed a greater priming effect by weak primes than by strong primes, which is in
contrast to the normal pattern of priming. Their interpretation was that REM sleep is
involved in enhancing the strength of memory association. To replicate these findings a
semantic priming experiment was designed. Subjects were exposed to prime-target pairs
just before sleeping, just after awakening from slow wave sleep as well as from REM sleep,
and after waking up in the morning. Reaction times on the target word were dependent
on the level of association of the prime-target words, and on the sleep-wake state just
before testing. In agreement with the literature was the finding that the stronger the
association, the shorter the reaction time on the target was. Moreover, and in agreement
with Stickgold et al.` findings, was the fact that reaction times after awakening from sleep
and REM sleep were longer compared to those when wakefulness was preceding the test.
This is in line with the phenomenon of �sleep inertia�. However, not in agreement with
Stickgold et al.` results was that the priming effect after REM sleep was smaller than that
after slow wave sleep. This effect was even comparable to the priming effect after waking.
This finding jeopardises the interpretation and conclusions with respect to the positive
function of REM sleep in memory consolidation. (Sleep and Hypnosis 2003;5(2):72-77)
| Keywords: sleep-wake states, REM sleep, memory hypothesis, semantic priming paradigm, priming effect, reaction times, sleep inertia |
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