Many people have claimed that sleep has helped them solve a difficult problem, but empirical support for this assertion remains tentative. The current experiment tested whether manipulating information processing during sleep impacts problem incubation and solving. In memory studies, delivering learning-associated sound cues during sleep can reactivate memories. We therefore predicted that reactivating previously unsolved problems could help people solve them. In the evening, we presented 57 participants with puzzles, each arbitrarily associated with a different sound. While participants slept overnight, half of the sounds associated with the puzzles they had not solved were surreptitiously presented. The next morning, participants solved 31.7% of cued puzzles, compared with 20.5% of uncued puzzles (a 55% improvement). Moreover, cued-puzzle solving correlated with cued-puzzle memory. Overall, these results demonstrate that cuing puzzle information during sleep can facilitate solving, thus supporting sleep’s role in problem incubation and establishing a new technique to advance understanding of problem solving and sleep cognition.

中文翻译：

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睡眠期间有针对性的记忆重新激活可改善第二天的问题解决能力

许多人声称睡眠帮助他们解决了一个难题，但对这一说法的实证支持仍然是初步的。当前的实验测试了在睡眠期间操纵信息处理是否会影响问题的酝酿和解决。在记忆研究中，在睡眠期间提供与学习相关的声音提示可以重新激活记忆。因此，我们预测重新激活以前未解决的问题可以帮助人们解决它们。晚上，我们向 57 名参与者提供了谜题，每个谜题都与不同的声音任意关联。当参与者过夜时，与他们未解决的谜题相关的一半声音会被秘密呈现。第二天早上，参与者解决了 31.7% 的有提示谜题，而无提示谜题的解决率为 20.5%（提高了 55%）。此外，提示谜题解决与提示谜题记忆相关。总的来说，这些结果表明，在睡眠期间提示谜题信息可以促进解决问题，从而支持睡眠在问题孵化中的作用，并建立一种新技术来促进对问题解决和睡眠认知的理解。