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Integration of waking experience through dreams considered in light of individual differences in implicit learning ability
Author(s) -
Wang JiaXi,
Li XinQuan,
He JingYu,
Ma HuiYing,
Bin Ting,
Wan Jing,
Feng XiaoLing,
Zemmelman Steve,
Shen HeYong
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of sleep research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.297
H-Index - 117
eISSN - 1365-2869
pISSN - 0962-1105
DOI - 10.1111/jsr.13171
Subject(s) - psychology , cognitive psychology , task (project management) , autobiographical memory , sequence learning , consolidation (business) , developmental psychology , social psychology , recall , business , management , accounting , economics
The present study explored whether individual differences in implicit learning were related to the incorporation of waking events into dreams. Participants ( N = 60) took part in a sequence learning task, a measure of implicit learning ability. They were then asked to keep a record of their waking experiences (personally significant events [PSEs]/major concerns), as well as their nightly dreams for a week. Of these, the responses of 51 participants were suitable for further analysis in which participants themselves and three independent judges rated the correlation between waking events and dreams of the same day. Implicit learning ability was found to significantly correlate with the incorporation of PSEs into dreams. The present results may lend support to the Horton and Malinowski autobiographical memory (AM) model, which accounts for the activation of memories in dreams as a reflection of sleep‐dependent memory consolidation processes that focusses in particular on the hyperassociative nature of AM during sleep.