Sleep plays a role in the consolidation of various aspects of language learning. In this study, we investigated the extent to which sleep-dependent memory consolidation contributes to second language (L2) rule generalization and enhancement of L2 explicit knowledge. One hundred native English speakers were engaged in a meaning-focused training of two German grammar rules. Participants were trained either in the morning or in the evening and tested after a retention interval that was either filled with wakefulness or sleep. During the test, we used a grammaticality judgment test to measure grammatical learning and retrospective verbal reports and source attributions to measure awareness. We found that sleep consolidated learning only for learners who reported awareness of syntactic rules prior to sleep. However, performance based on explicit sources did not differ after a period of sleep and after a period of wakefulness. These findings suggest that sleep may benefit L2 rule generalization only for learners who are aware of the L2 rules before sleep but may not consolidate L2 explicit knowledge.

中文翻译：

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第二语言语法知识的睡眠依赖巩固

睡眠在巩固语言学习的各个方面发挥着作用。在这项研究中，我们调查了依赖睡眠的记忆巩固对第二语言 (L2) 规则概括和 L2 显性知识增强的贡献程度。一百名以英语为母语的人参加了针对两条德语语法规则的以意义为中心的培训。参与者在早上或晚上接受培训，并在充满清醒或睡眠的保留间隔后进行测试。在测试期间，我们使用语法判断测试来衡量语法学习和回顾性口头报告和来源归因来衡量意识。我们发现，睡眠巩固学习仅适用于在睡眠前报告句法规则意识的学习者。然而，基于明确来源的表现在睡眠一段时间和清醒一段时间后没有差异。这些研究结果表明，睡眠可能仅对那些在睡眠前就知道 L2 规则但可能无法巩固 L2 显性知识的学习者进行 L2 规则泛化。