Does Acoustic Stimulation During Sleep Boost Slow Wave Sleep and Memory Performance?

Change from baseline episodic memory performance after three nights of intervention

Face-occupation associative memory task: encoding of 40 faces coupled with 40 occupations takes place on the evening of the first intervention night followed by a retrieval session (BASELINE). Feedback-based retrieval sessions take place on the following mornings and evenings of three consecutive intervention nights (4 feedback-based encoding sessions). After the last intervention night a retrieval session without feedback is performed upon waking (ASSESSMENT OF CHANGE)

Time frame: The change in memory performance will be assessed between the baseline measurement (evening before the first intervention night) and on the morning of the last intervention night (1 hour after waking), 3 days after initial encoding

Change from baseline performance in computer-based verbal new learning task (episodic memory) after three nights of intervention

Verbal associative memory task: a list of 30 moderately associated word pairs (e.g. balloon-air) are presented on a screen. The respective word pairs are displayed for five seconds each and participants are asked to memorize them. After a one-minute break, a cued recall follows in which one word of each pair is randomly shown and participants are prompted to name the matching second word (BASELINE). After the last intervention night a different list of 30 word pairs is used for another session of encoding and retrieval (ASSESSMENT OF CHANGE)

Time frame: The change in new learning performance will be assessed between the baseline measurement (morning before the first intervention night) and on the morning of the last intervention night (1.5 hour after waking), 3 days after.