Sleep Therapy and Bias (Photo : Twitter/@FT)
Sleep therapy helps minimize race and gender biases, according to a study published in the journal Science.
A study was conducted by a team of neuroscientist researchers at Northwestern University and it aims to reduce inherent racial and gender discrimination during a person's unconscious state.
The researchers utilized a technique called "counter-stereotype training", which alters habitual reactions of the study subjects during sleep.
Senior study author Ken A. Paller said that the trial involved subjects who were shown images that are different from what they might have been exposed to. Images of women and African-American men were used.
The subjects were asked to press a sound-triggering button, which was labeled "Correct," as the pictures of women were shown together with scientific words and African-America men along with pleasant words.
After the procedure, the subjects were instructed to take a nap for 90 minutes while the sounds were played to them. The subjects who heard the sounds during sleep demonstrated a decrease in bias, which persisted for a week.
The research team also called the technique "Targeted Memory Reactivation," as better memory for information prompted during sleep was produced by the sounds, as per Neuroscience News.
Another trial involved forty subjects, who underwent counter-stereotype information that is matched with a specific sound wave. Each type of bias corresponds to a particular sound wave.
During a slow-wave sleep, a specific type of sound was repeatedly presented to each subject, restarting one type of training. The decrease in the bias was stimulated versus the social bias that was not reactivated while the subject was asleep.
The extent of the bias was also linked with variables, such as time in the slow-wave and rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep following the training.
The team found out that reactivation of the memory during sleep improves counter-stereotype training. The investigators added that the bias reduction process depends on the sleep activity of a person.
