It is not yet clear whether humans are able to learn while they are sleeping. Here we show that full-term human newborns can be taught to discriminate between similar vowel sounds when they are fast asleep. It is possible that such sleep training soon after birth could find application in clinical or educational situations.
Language and the Developing Brain Laboratory, Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, and Department of Psychology, University of Turku, 20100 Turku, Finland. marie.cheour@utu.fi
