Author(s)

Chi-Fai Lo^1,2,3

¹Institute of Theoretical Physics and Department of Physics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
²Department of Psychology, Sociology and Politics, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, United Kingdom.
³Social and Human Sciences Section, SCOPE, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.

In our modern societies, sleep is commonly viewed as a luxury rather than a necessity, and should be kept at a strict minimum to enhance productivity. However, recent empirical studies reveal that sleep does play a critical role in our learning and memory; in fact, it has been shown that good sleep quality, feeling rested at school and having a distinct bed time have been associated with better functioning at school. Although consensus on sleep’s contribution to the active processing of newly acquired memories has been established now, the question about exactly what underlying mechanisms are involved in the sleep-memory connection still remains unclear. This paper will critically discuss how sleep affects learning and memory with reference to current research findings.

Sleep, Memory, Learning, Acquisition, Consolidation, Retrieval, Active System Consolidation Theory, Synaptic Homeostasis Theory

Lo, C. (2018) Critically Discuss the Effects of Sleep on Long-Term Memory. Psychology, 9, 561-569. doi: 10.4236/psych.2018.94034.