Cited by 75Sleep and Wakefulness ResearchMemory Processes and InfluencesMemory and Neural Mechanisms

Relational Memory: A Daytime Nap Facilitates the Abstraction of General Concepts

Open access
Lau, Hiuyan, Alger, Sara E., Fishbein, William·2011·PLoS ONE

Abstract

It is increasingly evident that sleep strengthens memory. However, it is not clear whether sleep promotes relational memory, resultant of the integration of disparate memory traces into memory networks linked by commonalities. The present study investigates the effect of a daytime nap, immediately after learning or after a delay, on a relational memory task that requires abstraction of general concept from separately learned items. Specifically, participants learned English meanings of Chinese characters with overlapping semantic components called radicals. They were later tested on new characters sharing the same radicals and on explicitly stating the general concepts represented by the radicals. Regardless of whether the nap occurred immediately after learning or after a delay, the nap participants performed better on both tasks. The results suggest that sleep--even as brief as a nap--facilitates the reorganization of discrete memory traces into flexible relational memory networks.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1371/journal.pone.0027139

Cites

25 of 25 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • After a nap, relational memory accuracy correlates with amount of SWS.

    “Comparable results were obtained after a nap using relations between different faces paired with the same object, whereby the amount of SWS correlated with the accuracy of relational memory (705,706).”

    From About Sleep's Role in Memory (2013) · cites this paper as [705]

    The Results > Sleep Data section reports that no significant correlation was detected between sleep parameters and task performance, contrary to the claimed SWS–accuracy correlation. The study also tested relational memory using Chinese characters, not faces paired with objects. (LLM, conf=0.90)

    Checked by a reasoning model — may be wrong.

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

1 of the 26 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Lau, H., Alger, S. E., & Fishbein, W.
Affiliations
City College of New York (US)
Corresponding author
Lau, Hiuyan
Venue
PLoS ONE
Published
2011-11-16
Volume
6
Issue
11
Pages
e27139
ISSN
1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2000825479
Cited by
75
References
26
Citations by year
2025: 3 · 2024: 9 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 8 · 2013: 5 · 2012: 4
FWCI
2.76
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • CUNY Academic Works (City University of New York) (submittedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Funders
  • City University of New York
  • Research Foundation of The City University of New York
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Sleep and Wakefulness Research
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory Processes and Influences
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
Keywords
relational memory, daytime napping, sleep-dependent memory consolidation, Chinese character learning, radicals, semantic integration, memory reorganization
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Adult, Cues, Humans, Male, Memory, Motivation, Sleep, Time Factors, Vocabulary, Young Adult

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review