Knowledge is gained in pieces, but these individual pieces are not all we know. In order to understand the big picture, we put together these bits of knowledge, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. If we learn that A is greater than B, and that B is greater than C, we know a third fact by deduction: that A is greater than C.

Our brains demonstrate their capacity for inference by this kind of linking bits of knowledge. The ability to make logical big picture inferences from disparate pieces of information is called relational memory.

A study led by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA found that this ability to link bits of directly-learned information and to make leaps of inference to construct the big picture is enhanced when we sleep.

The study involved student participants divided into three groups who learned facts about pairs of shapes they were shown. Each group was tested to see how well they were able to infer the relationship between the facts they learned about individual pairs. Group one was tested after 20 minutes, Group Two was tested after 12 hours and Group Three was tested after a full 24-hour period.

Group One, which was tested only 20 minutes after the learning period, scored the worst on understanding the interrelationship between the pairs. Approximately half of the students in Group Two slept during the 12-hour period, while the other half remained awake. All of the students in Group Three had a full night’s sleep.

Groups Two and Three showed a clear understanding of the interrelationships between the pairs of shapes.

According to senior author Matthew Walker, PhD, Director of the Sleep and Neuroimaging Laboratory at BIDMC and Assistant Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School (HMS), “These findings point to an important benefit [of sleep] that we had not previously considered. Sleep not only strengthens a person’s individual memories, it appears to actually knit them together and helps realize how they are associated with one another. And this may, in fact, turn out to be the primary goal of sleep: You go to bed with pieces of the memory puzzle, and awaken with the jigsaw completed.”

To Understand The Big Picture, Give It Time - And Sleep

We all know that in a crowded or noisy setting, we can hear what someone is saying to us better if we can see their face. To some extent we all lip-read in that we can associate mouth movements with words as an aid to understanding speech.

But UC Riverside psychology Professor, Lawrence D. Rosenblum, and graduate students, Rachel M. Miller and Kauyumari Sanchez, have done research that indicates that studying someone’s face while they are speaking - even without sound - will help us hear them later.

The study involved 60 undergraduate students who were asked to lip-read sentences from a silent video of a speaker’s face. The students had no former experience lip-reading.

Students then listened to an audio of speakers against a lot of background noise. Half listened to a tape with the speaker they had just viewed and the other half listened to a tape of a new speaker. They were asked to identify as many words as possible from the sentences. The students who heard sentences from the speaker they had just spent an hour watching and trying to lip-read, were better able to identify more words from the noisy audio.

These findings suggest that when we watch a person speak, we become familiar with characteristics of their speaking style which also are present in the sound of their speech. This allows talker familiarity to be transferred from lip reading to listening, thereby making a talker easier to hear. These results have implications for individuals with hearing impairments as well as for brain lesion patients, Rosenblum said.

“Lip-Read Me Now, Hear Me Better Later: Crossmodal Transfer of Talker Familiarity Effects” - UC Riverside

Is burning the midnight oil while pondering a big problem or studying for an important exam an effective way to sear knowledge into your brain? Despite the stereotype we often see of the dedicated scientist working long into the night to solve a particular equation, it is more likely that a good night’s sleep and a fresh start would be a more effective strategy.

Research indicates that the brain’s ability to refuse and fend off distracting influences decreases when we are tired. Normally, when we are involved in a task, our brains select to allow or disallow incoming information. Distracting information is disallowed. However as tiredness increases, this ability decreases and distraction can disrupt concentration.

Dutch researcher Harm Veling conducted experiments using words and memory tests. Subjects studied words that were strongly associated with each other, some similar words that served as distracting words and some neutral words that were not associated with the others at all. Suppressing the distractions was key to performing well on the test and performing the task quickly.

The brain’s ability to suppress distraction is adversely affected by tiredness. Subjects who were suffering mental fatigue did the least well on the tests as they were no longer able to suppress the distractions.

So the next time you are facing a difficult task requiring concentration, the best way to prepare is to rest up for it.

Brain Fends Off Distractions - Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research

Research has shown that playing video games sharpens vision. New studies done in Tel Aviv now indicate that playing specific types of computer games can sharpen your mind.

MindFit computer software was specifically designed to take advantage of the plasticity of the brain and using cognitive training, improve mental abilities such as short-term memory, auditory short term memory, location memory, spatial orientation, planning, speed of reaction and hand-eye coordination.

The studies conducted at the Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center of Tel- Aviv University in Israel, involved two groups of subjects age 50 and older who were assigned to spend 30 minutes, three times a week, playing either the MindFit software or sophisticated computer games.

All the participants benefited from playing the computer games but those using the MindFit software made greater gains in cognitive performance.

The research proves that seniors and boomers can significantly boost cognitive ability and preserve mental function through the use of cognitive training. Because those with lower baseline cognitive performance made greater gains than those with normal cognition, it could also prove to be a defense against age-related decline.