Sleep promotes the stabilization of memories in adulthood, with a growing literature on the benefits of sleep for memory in infants and children. In two studies, we examined the role of sleep in the retention and generalization of nonadjacent dependencies (NADs; e.g., a-X-b/c-X-d phrases) in an artificial language. Previously, a study demonstrated that over a delay of 4 h, 15 mo olds who nap after training retain a general memory of the NAD rule instead of memory for specific NADs heard during training. In experiment 1, we designed a replication of the nap condition used in the earlier study but tested 18-mo-old infants. Infants of this age retained veridical memory for specific NADs over a delay containing sleep, providing preliminary evidence of the development of memory processes (experiment 1). In experiment 2, we tested 18 mo olds’ ability to generalize the NAD to new vocabulary, finding only infants who napped after training generalized their knowledge of the pattern to completely novel phrases. Overall, by 18 mo of age, children retain specific memories over a period containing sleep, and sleep promotes abstract memories to a greater extent than wakefulness.

中文翻译：

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18 个月大婴儿在睡眠期间非相邻依赖性的保留和泛化的发育变化

睡眠可以促进成年期记忆的稳定，越来越多的文献表明睡眠对婴儿和儿童的记忆有好处。在两项研究中，我们研究了睡眠在人工语言中非相邻依赖性（NAD；例如 aXb/cXd 短语）的保留和泛化中的作用。此前的一项研究表明，经过 4 小时的延迟，训练后打盹的 15 个月的孩子保留了对 NAD 规则的一般记忆，而不是对训练期间听到的特定 NAD 的记忆。在实验 1 中，我们设计了早期研究中使用的午睡条件的复制品，但测试对象是 18 个月大的婴儿。这个年龄的婴儿在睡眠延迟期间保留了对特定 NAD 的真实记忆，这提供了记忆过程发展的初步证据（实验 1）。在实验 2 中，我们测试了 18 个月大的孩子将 NAD 泛化为新词汇的能力，发现只有在训练后小睡的婴儿才能将他们对模式的知识泛化为全新的短语。总体而言，到 18 个月大时，儿童在一段包含睡眠的时间内保留了特定的记忆，并且睡眠比清醒更能促进抽象记忆。