白天小睡有利于增强记忆力

 A brief nap could boost people's memory, according to new research.

一项最新调查表明，小睡能增强记忆力。

Researchers at The City University of New York found that having a brief sleep improved people's ability to remember things.

纽约城市大学的研究者们发现，小睡一觉能提高人的记忆力。

Volunteers were told to memorise¹ pairs of words. When they were tested straight afterwards and six hours later, those who had been allowed a nap of up to one hour before the retest achieved 15 percent higher scores than the volunteers who had not been allowed to go to sleep.

研究人员让参加调查的志愿者记住几组单词，并在分别记完之后和6小时后对他们进行测试。结果发现，那些在接受再次测试前小睡了1小时的人比未小睡的人得分高出15个百分点。

The researchers told New Scientist magazine: "Traditionally, time devoted² to daytime napping has been considered counterproductive ."

研究人员在接受《新科学家》杂志采访时说："人们一直认为白天小睡起不到什么积极作用。"

But they added that it now seemed that sleep was "an important mechanism³ for memory formation".

但是，现在看来，睡眠"是形成记忆的一个重要途径"。

The study was published in the journal Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, the magazine said.

据《新科学家》杂志介绍，此项研究结果发表在《学习和记忆神经生物学》上。

1 memorise   

vt.记住，熟记

参考例句：

• An actor must be able to memorise his lines.演员须善于熟记台词。
• I shall try to memorise all these phrases.我要熟记所有这些词组。

2 devoted   

adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的

参考例句：

• He devoted his life to the educational cause of the motherland.他为祖国的教育事业贡献了一生。
• We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。

3 mechanism   

n.机械装置；机构，结构

参考例句：

• The bones and muscles are parts of the mechanism of the body.骨骼和肌肉是人体的组成部件。
• The mechanism of the machine is very complicated.这台机器的结构是非常复杂的。