Question

Why did early attempts at sleep teaching fail and how did they improve it?

Answer 1

Mrs. Navarro?

Sleep teaching failed because they were trying to teach the little kids something really hard that they couldn't understand. When they changed methods, moral learning became the main lesson. This was to show that it needed to be something normal because it was not rational thought.

Answer 2

The early attempts in the 50ies failed because it was verified that the test subjects couldn't recall when awake what they were taught during sleep. (There was one exception, however. Sleep learnings did seem to occur when at the moment the subjects were being taught, alpha waves emitted by the brain were also observed. But since these types of waves are emitted by the brain when a person is about to wake up, the researchers concluded that the subjects simply woke up to learn what was being taught, instead of sleep learning it).

In 2012, researchers from the Weizman Institute of Science discovered that the human brain is capable of strengthening previously acquired memories during sleep, under stimulation. Although it doesn't prove that a person is able to learn entirely new pieces of information, it was a huge advance in the field since the discredited results from the 50ies.