Children and adults should learn unintentionally the spelling of new vocabulary. Word memorisation should be achieved in a non-educational context (for example, by reading texts) (Share, 2004). Moreover, the role of sleep in the memory consolidation is established (Rasch and Born, 2013).
In this research, participants were placed in the present situation: text comprehension. The purpose is the to study the incidental learning on the spelling of pseudo-words. Our final number’s study was 82 participants with inclusion criteria: Being between 18 and 25 years old, being enrolled in higher education, not being diagnosed with dyslexic disorders or having undergone general anesthesia in the three months, be French speaking as well as having done the three sessions of the experiment in the imposed schedules. The three sessions were completely computerized.
Then, sleep pattern of participants was measured by the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality, the Epworth scale and the Horne & Ostberg circadian typology. As the first step, pseudo-words were inserted into the body of the text. The stories deal with various topics (fruit, animal, clothing, etc.) in order to make as many different lexical fields of words. The second step of the research was carried out 12 hours later: after a night’s sleep (sleep group) or a standby (awakening group).
It has taken place in three phases: dictation, multiple choice and relearning up to criterion. For dictation, the participant had to listen to the pseudo-word and write it as encoding. Once the dictation was over, the participants switched to multiple choices: the four words spelling possibilities were presented, and the participant had to choose the orthography read beforehand. Finally, the participants were tackled with a re-learning up to criterion. Participants had to listen and rewrite the 12 pseudo-words again to learn their spelling. The correctly spelled pseudo-words were followed by a positive feedback and were no longer presented, while the misspelled pseudo-words were followed by a negative feedback with the actual spelling written below (for four seconds). Misspelled pseudo-words were again presented until a final positive feedback.
The re-learning allowed us to obtain three measures: The number of good of good spelling word in the first cycle, The number of cycles, The number of tests. The results achieved highlight a significance for the number of good responses to multiple choices, the first retraining test and the number of tests. An implicit questionnaire was given to the participants to check the incident of the learning.
Thus, this work/study/research highlights the correlation between the sleep and the memorization of lexical spelling. By developing our incident learning mechanisms’ understanding, we can improve the learning’s conditions and efficacies, particularly in the longer term: for children. It would be interesting to resume this study by improving the negative points and widen the effects of the nap. In order to know if it has a rewarding effect as the sleep just as proved by Stickgold (2000) on a discrimination’s task with similar texture. According to him, a nap of 60 to 90 minutes could stop the decline of performances, since the nap would include slow sleep and REM sleep. The results would be comparable between a full night and a nap. Therefore, a nap performed during the day and followed by a night’s sleep would be as rewarding as two nights of sleep. Indeed, if naps’ results are attested, we will be able to modify the educational approaches and advise children nap and sleep’s benefits.
Keys Words :
- Implicit learning;
- Memory performance;
- Lexical spelling;
- Sleep;
- Adults;
- Pseudo-words.
Bibliography :
- Rasch, B., & Born, J. (2013). About sleep’s role in memory. Physiological reviews, 93(2), 681-766.
- Share, D. L. (2004). Orthographic learning at a glance: On the time course and developmental onset of self-teaching. Journal of experimental child psychology, 87(4), 267–298
- Stickgold, R., Whidbee, D., Schirmer, B., Patel, V., & Hobson, J. A. (2000). Visual discrimination task improvement: A multi-step process occurring during sleep. Journal of cognitive neuroscience, 12(2), 246-254.
ABSIL Lauranne, Master 2 PPCECC