In a breakthrough that scientists say will help them better understand, and capitalize on, the abilities of those sleeping, a new report out of Europe says the human brain plays with language, even when the body is at rest.

Researchers from Cambridge and Paris introduced experiment participants to a word test while awake and then noted then discovered they continued to respond to inquiries and classify words correctly even after they had gone to sleep, according to a report by BBC News.

The sleeping brain can perform a range of complex tasks, especially if the tasks in question are automated, noted the study, which has been published in the scientific journal Current Biology.

"This explains some everyday life experiences such as our sensitivity to our name in our sleep, or to the specific sound of our alarm clock, compared to equally loud but less relevant sounds," Sid Kouider, from the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, told BBC News. "We show that the sleeping brain can be far more 'active' in sleep than one would think."

Kouider indicated he and his scientific colleagues wanted to explore the human brain's behavior during waking, as well as sleep states.

So, using an electroencephalogram, which records the electrical impulses in the brain through electrodes attached to one's scalp, they analyzed the brain activity of participants while they were asked to classify spoken words as either animals or objects by pressing a button.

Participants were asked to press a button in their right hand for animals and in their left hand for objects -- thereby allowing the researchers to map each word category to a specific movement in the brain.

Then the study participants were asked to lie down in a darkened area with their eyes closed and continue the word classification task as they fell to sleep.

Once the subjects were asleep, a new list of words was tested on participants to ensure that the brain had to figure out the meaning of the words before classifying them with the buttons.

Even as the participants were completely motionless and unaware, their brain activity revealed that they continued to respond accurately to the word task, the researchers said, although more slowly.

The research also showed it was possible for people to perform calculations on simple equations while falling asleep -- and then continue to identify those calculations as right or wrong while unconscious, the BBC story said.

In fact, any task that could become automated -- meaning repetitive -- had the potential to be carried over into sleep, through activities that can't be automated end up stopping as sleep sets in.

Determining the processing capacity of sleeping brains is the next on the researchers' to-do list.

"Research focusing on how to take advantage of our sleeping time must consider what is the associated cost, if any, and whether it is worth it," Kouider said.