Sleep Can Help Snore Away Gender and Racial Bias: Study

Sleep's role in memory consolidation is well-known but a goodnight's slumber can also help eliminate prejudice.

Researchers from University of Texas in Austin expanded the use of brain's memory consolidation technique to rid it of biases learnt during childhood. The learning cues that help consolidation of neural connections and memory can also be used to help one unlearn, for instance, bias against women, The Economic Times reports.

"Although people may endorse egalitarianism and tolerance, social biases can remain operative and drive harmful actions in an unconscious manner," researchers wrote in the study published in the journal Science.

Forty participants were taught to associate good words with images of people of different races and genders, which became counter-bias words. The participants were also trained to associate a specific sound with every counter-bias.

During a 90-minute nap, researchers randomly played the sound to stimulate the 'unlearning' process. After the nap and up to a week later, the participants showed substantially reduced bias for what they were trained to counter.

"Corresponding bias reductions were fortified in comparison with the social bias not externally reactivated during sleep. This advantage remained 1 week later, the magnitude of which was associated with time in slow-wave and rapid-eye-movement sleep after training. We conclude that memory reactivation during sleep enhances counter-stereotype training and that maintaining a bias reduction is sleep-dependent," researchers wrote.