An interesting study on sleep in relation to memory recall:
A sentence that caught my attention;
“New memories are only really useful if you can connect them to information you already know. Imagine a game of chess, and being told that the rule governing the movement of a specific piece has just changed. That new information is only useful to you once you can modify your game strategy, the knowledge of how the other pieces move, and how to respond to your opponent’s moves. Our study identifies the brain activity during sleep that organises new memories and makes those vital connections with existing knowledge.”
So…do your revision in the morning. And may I add: “And consider studying new material before going to bed, as well as revise again before bed”:
I’ve often deliberately chosen to study new material before bed (not just doing revision), knowing that I have much better recall of the new material next day. This seems to work for me even better than simply studying something new in the morning & revising before bed. It’s good to find out what optimises our study performance.
On the other hand, if I’ve had a crappy night’s sleep, then I learn only a fraction of what I normally would the next day. Oh, and I need to edit my posts a lot more:)
What has worked a treat for me, is practising Chinese tone charts (textbook/audio) say, or deliberately learning difficult grammar (Jap/Chin), before bed. The sort of things that are less likely to stick in my brain otherwise.
