Greg Gage: Who wouldn't love acing a geography exam, remembering all the locations of the countries on a map or avoiding embarrassing situations of suddenly forgetting the person's name standing right in front of you. It turns out that memory, like other muscles in the body, can be strengthened and enhanced. But instead of practicing with flash cards, there may be an interesting way that we can hack our memory while we sleep.
Greg Gage: Siapa yang tak ingin lulus ujian geografi, mengingat lokasi semua negara dalam peta atau menghindari situasi memalukan saat tiba-tiba lupa nama orang yang ada di hadapan Anda. Ternyata, ingatan, sebagaimana otot-otot dalam tubuh, dapat diperkuat dan ditingkatkan. Tetapi, alih-alih memakai kartu istilah, mungkin ada cara yang menarik yaitu meretas ingatan kita saat tertidur.
(Music)
(Musik)
Why do we sleep? This has been a question asked since the early days of civilization. And while we may not know the exact answer, there are a number of really good theories about why we need it. Sleep is when the brain transfers short-term memories experienced throughout the day into long-term memories. This process is called memory consolidation, and it's the memory consolidation theory that has scientists wondering if we can enhance certain memories over others. There was a paper recently in the journal "Science" by Ken Paller and his colleagues at Northwestern that seemed to show that this may be true, and that piqued our curiosity. Joud has been working on a DIY version of this task to see if we can improve memories through the use of sound in sleep. So Joud, how do you test if we can improve our memories with sleep?
Mengapa kita tidur? Pertanyaan ini sudah ada sejak awal peradaban. Meskipun kita belum tahu jawaban pastinya, ada sejumlah teori kuat yang menjelaskan manfaatnya. Ketika tidur, otak mengirim ingatan jangka pendek yang dialami seharian menjadi ingatan jangka panjang. Proses ini disebut konsolidasi ingatan. Para ilmuwan bertanya-tanya, apakah melalui konsolidasi memori ini, kita bisa meningkatkan ingatan tertentu. Ada satu makalah dalam jurnal "Science" oleh Ken Paller dan rekannya di Northwestern yang tampak membenarkan kemungkinan itu, dan itu membuat kami penasaran. Joud telah membuat versi swakriya dari percobaan ini untuk menguji peningkatan ingatan akibat pemberian suara saat tidur. Joud, bagaimana kamu menguji peningkatan ingatan saat tidur?
Joud Mar’i: We need a human subject.
Joud Mar'i: Kami butuh subyek uji.
[Step 1: Play a game] We have a memory game that we have on an iPad, and then we make our subject play this game and remember the images and where they appear on the screen.
[Langkah 1: Bermain gim] Kami sediakan gim ingatan di iPad, lalu kami minta subyek memainkannya dan mengingat gambar juga tempat munculnya pada layar.
GG: So this is like a memory game you used to play as a child, which picture was where. And we tie each picture with a sound that represents it.
GG: Jadi ini mirip gim ingatan semasa kecil dulu, mencari letak gambar. Kami hubungkan gambar dengan suara yang mewakilinya.
JM: So, if you can see a picture of a car, for example, and you would hear the car engine.
JM: Misalnya jika Anda melihat gambar mobil, Anda akan dengar suara mesin mobil.
(Car engine starting)
(Mesin mobil dinyalakan)
GG: Just before you go to sleep we're going to test you. We're going to see how well you remember where the pictures are. Every time you see the picture, you're going to hear the sound. And now comes the experiment. You're going to go take a nap. [Step 2: Take a nap] And while you're sleeping, we're going to be recording your EEG.
GG: Tepat sebelum tidur, kami akan menguji Anda. Kami akan lihat kemampuan Anda mengingat letak gambar. Setiap kali melihat gambar itu, Anda akan mendengar suara. Sekarang saatnya percobaan. Anda akan tidur sebentar. [Langkah 2: Tidur] Selama Anda tertidur, kami merekam EEG Anda.
JM: And then we wait for them to go into what's called the slow-wave sleep, which is the deepest phase of your sleep where it's really hard for you to wake up.
JM: Kami menunggu hingga tercapai fase tidur gelombang lambat, yaitu fase lelap ketika Anda paling sulit untuk terbangun.
GG: OK, pause. So, here's some information on sleep. There are four stages: we have lighter stages of sleep and REM, but what we're interested in is called slow-wave sleep. And it gets its name from the electrical signals called Delta waves that we record from the brain. This is the part of sleep where scientists believe that memory consolidation can happen. In this deep period of sleep, we're going to do something that you don't know we're going to do.
GG: Baik, jeda dulu. Saya jelaskan tentang tidur. Ada empat tahap tidur; yaitu beberapa tahap tidur yang lebih ringan dan REM, tetapi kita menyasar pada fase tidur gelombang lambat. Istilah itu berasal dari sinyal listrik yang disebut gelombang Delta yang terekam di otak. Pada tahapan tidur inilah, ilmuwan meyakini bahwa konsolidasi ingatan dapat terjadi. Dalam tahap tidur lelap ini, kita akan melakukan hal yang tidak Anda sadari.
JM: Here's where the tricky part comes, and we start playing our cues.
JM: Inilah bagian pentingnya. Kami memutar petunjuk suara.
(Car engine starting)
(Mesin mobil dinyalakan)
GG: Do you play all the cues?
GG: Apakah semuanya diputar?
JM: No. We only want to play half of them to see if there's a difference.
JM: Tidak. Hanya setengahnya supaya tampak perbedaannya.
GG: So your hypothesis is the one that they were listening to while they're sleeping they're going to do better at.
GG: Jadi hipotesis Anda adalah orang yang mendengar petunjuk saat tidur akan bermain gim lebih baik saat bangun.
JM: Yes, exactly.
JM: Ya, tepat.
GG: When you wake back up and play the game again, do you do better or worse than before a nap? What we found is that if we played you a cue during your sleep, for example, a car -- You would remember the position of that car when you woke back up again. But if we didn't play you the cue during the sleep, for example, a guitar, you'd be less likely to remember that guitar when you woke up. The memories that were cued they remembered better than the ones they weren't, even though they don't remember hearing those sounds?
GG: Saat bangun dan bermain kembali, apakah Anda lebih jago atau lebih payah dibandingkan sebelum tidur? Yang kami temukan adalah jika kami memutarkan petunjuk saat Anda tidur, misalnya suara mobil, Anda akan mengingat letak mobil saat Anda kembali terbangun. Tetapi, jika tidak memutarkan petunjuk, misalnya, suara gitar, kecil kemungkinan Anda akan mengingat gambar gitar saat bangun. Ingatan yang diputarkan petunjuk diingat dengan lebih baik, daripada yang tidak, meski mereka tidak ingat mendengar bunyi itu selama tidur?
JM: Yes, we ask them.
JM: Ya, kami tanyakan itu.
GG: We know they're sleeping, they can't hear it, they wake up, they do better on those than the ones you didn't play.
GG: Mereka tidur, tidak mendengar, lalu bangun, bermain lebih baik daripada yang tidak diberi petunjuk.
GG: That's amazing. JM: It's like magic.
GG: Menakjubkan. JM: Seperti sulap.
GG: Joud ran this experiment on 12 people and the results were significant. It's not that you remember things better; it's that you forget them less. I was a huge skeptic when I first heard that you could do better at a memory test just by playing sounds during sleep. But we replicated these experiments. The facts and memories we collect throughout the day are very fragile, and they are easily lost and forgotten. But by reactivating them during sleep, even without us being aware, it seems like we could make them more stable and less prone to forgetting. That's pretty incredible. Our brains are still active even when we're not. So if you're like me and a bit forgetful, perhaps a solution is a pair of headphones and a soft couch.
GG: Joud melakukan percobaan ini terhadap 12 orang dan hasilnya signifikan. Bukan karena mengingat hal lebih baik, tetapi jadi tidak mudah lupa. Saya ragu-ragu saat pertama kali mendengar bahwa orang jadi ingat lebih baik jika diputarkan suara saat tidur. Karenanya, kami mengulangi percobaan ini. Fakta dan ingatan yang kita kumpulkan sepanjang hari sangatlah rapuh, mudah hilang dan terlupakan. Tetapi, dengan mengaktifkannya lagi selama tidur, bahkan tanpa kita sadari, rupanya kita bisa membuatnya lebih stabil dan tak mudah terlupakan. Sungguh menakjubkan. Otak kita masih aktif meskipun tubuh kita tidak. Maka, jika Anda agak pelupa seperti saya, mungkin solusinya adalah seperangkat penyuara jemala dan sofa yang lembut.