ArticlePloS one2021
Future-relevant memories are not selectively strengthened during sleep.
Article in PloS one, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed.
- Sleep loss disrupts the neural signature of successful learning.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2023Trial
- Memory consolidation during sleep: a facilitator of new learning?Neuropsychologia · 2026Review
- Lexical alignment persists across a 12 h interval but is unaffected by sleep versus wake.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- No Effects of Predictability on Word-Meaning Priming and Incidental Memory.Journal of cognition · 2026Article
- Validation of the comprehensive online sleep monitoring scale in a large population sample.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Two-factor synaptic consolidation reconciles robustness with pruning and homeostatic scaling.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Does overnight memory consolidation support next-day learning?Cognition · 2025Article
- Memory control deficits in the sleep-deprived human brain.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Delineating memory reactivation in sleep with verbal and non-verbal retrieval cues.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2024Article
- Data from "A Registered Report Testing the Effect of Sleep on DRM False Memory: Greater Lure and Veridical Recall but Fewer Intrusions After Sleep".Journal of open psychology data · 2024Article
- A registered report testing the effect of sleep on Deese-Roediger-McDermott false memory: greater lure and veridical recall but fewer intrusions after sleep.Royal Society open science · 2023Article
- The influence of encoding strategy on associative memory consolidation across wake and sleep.Learning & memory (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.) · 2023Article
- Consolidation without intention: Sleep strengthens veridical and gist representations of information after incidental encoding.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2023Article
- Sleep preferentially consolidates negative aspects of human memory: Well-powered evidence from two large online experiments.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Sleep bolsters schematically incongruent memories.PloS one · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Overnight consolidation processes are thought to operate in a selective manner, such that important (i.e. future-relevant) memories are strengthened ahead of irrelevant information. Using an online protocol, we sought to replicate the seminal finding that the memory benefits of sleep are enhanced when people expect a future test [Wilhelm et al., 2011]. Participants memorised verbal paired associates to a criterion of 60 percent (Experiment 1) or 40 percent correct (Experiment 2) before a 12-hour delay containing overnight sleep (sleep group) or daytime wakefulness (wake group). Critically, half of the participants were informed that they would be tested again the following day, whereas the other half were told that they would carry out a different set of tasks. We observed a robust memory benefit of overnight consolidation, with the sleep group outperforming the wake group in both experiments. However, knowledge of an upcoming test had no impact on sleep-associated consolidation in either experiment, suggesting that overnight memory processes were not enhanced for future-relevant information. These findings, together with other failed replication attempts, show that sleep does not provide selective support to memories that are deemed relevant for the future.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.