Learning New Vocabulary Implicitly During Sleep Transfers With Cross-Modal Generalization Into Wakefulness

Abstract

New information can be learned during sleep but the extent to which we can access this knowledge after awakening is far less understood. Using a novel Associative Transfer Learning paradigm, we show that, after hearing unknown Japanese words with sounds referring to their meaning during sleep, participants could identify the images depicting the meaning of newly acquired Japanese words after awakening (N = 22). Moreover, we demonstrate that this cross-modal generalization is implicit, meaning that participants remain unaware of this knowledge. Using electroencephalography, we further show that frontal slow-wave responses to auditory stimuli during sleep predicted memory performance after awakening. This neural signature of memory formation gradually emerged over the course of the sleep phase, highlighting the dynamics of associative learning during sleep. This study provides novel evidence that the formation of new associative memories can be traced back to the dynamics of slow-wave responses to stimuli during sleep and that their implicit transfer into wakefulness can be generalized across sensory modalities.