Sleep has many functions—including facilitating learning.
睡眠有多种功能——包括促进学习。
Now a study finds that when we acquire new information, and how soon we sleep after that may affect our retention of the info. That's according toresearch in the journal Public Library of Science One.
现在，一项研究发现，当我们获得新的信息之后，很快睡眠可能影响我们对信息的记忆。这与公共科学图书馆里的期刊里记载的研究相吻合。
Scientists had more than 200 subjects memorize related words like fire and smoke, or unrelated word pairs like insect and truth." Some studied the words at 9 A.M., others at 9 P.M.
科学家请200名接受试验者记忆像火和烟这样有关联的词，或者像昆虫和真理一类无关联性的词组。一些人在上午九点学习，而另一些在下午九点学习。
The researchers tested the subjects' ability to remember the pairs after 30 minutes, 12 hours or 24 hours.
研究者们分别在30分钟、12小时或24小时后，测试受试验者对词组的记忆能力。
Sleep had little effect on the ability to recall related words. But subjects who slept between tests were significantly better at remembering the unrelated words than those who got no shuteye.
睡眠对记忆关联词组的水平几乎没有影响，但是测试期间有过睡眠的受测试者在记忆无关联的词组方面要比没有睡过的受测者好的多。
Here is the most interesting finding: In the 24-hour retest—where all subjects had a full night of sleep—those participants who went to bed shortly after learning the words did much better than those who went through an entire day before sleeping.
最有趣的发现是：在24小时的重复测试中，所有的受测者经过一整夜的睡眠，那些学习之后经过短暂睡眠的人比整天学习而后睡眠的人在词汇上学的更好。
And this leg up in memory was maintained on subsequent days. So if you need to remember something, try reviewing those notes just before bedtime. Instead of watching that rerun of Seinfeld you already have memorized.
这种对记忆的帮助在随后的几天内仍然持继，所以如果你需要记一些东西，尝试一下在睡前回顾一下它们，而不是看你已经记住的塞恩菲尔德重播。