REM sleep is related to the transfer of implicit procedural knowledge following metacognitive learning

Objective: The hypothesis that REM sleep is also related to the transfer of implicit procedural knowledge was tested. Methods: A total of 21 female adults (mean age: 19.49 years) took part in the study. After a baseline night, participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions to solve a cognitive procedural task (Tower of Hanoi problem; ToH); on the evening of the assessment night, one group solved the cognitive procedural task with and one group solved the task without metacognitive stimulation. The morning after the assessment night, participants solved three further transfer tasks (ToH with more disks; the Hobbits and Orcs problem; Katona’s card problem). Results: Participants with metacognitive stimulation showed an increased performance in all three transfer tasks. Moreover, these participants had a significantly increased REM sleep. Conclusion: REM sleep seems to be related to metacognitively acquired implicit procedural knowledge. The transfer of the acquired implicit procedural knowledge does not seem to be limited to structurally similar tasks.