The Effects of Acute Exercise on Retroactive Memory Interference.

Abstract

Retroactive interference involves the disruption of previously encoded information from newly learned information and thus may impair the consolidation of long-term memory. The objective of this study was to evaluate whether acute exercise can attenuate retroactive memory interference. Three experimental studies were employed. Experiment 1 employed a between-subject randomized control trial (RCT) involving moderate-intensity walking (15 minutes). Experiment 2 employed a between-subject RCT involving high-intensity jogging (15 minutes). Experiment 3 employed a within-subject RCT involving moderate-intensity walking (15 minutes). University setting. One hundred twelve young adults. After exercise, memory interference was evaluated from an episodic word-list memory task, involving the recall of 2 word lists. The pooled effect size (standard difference in means: -0.35; 95% confidence interval: -0.64 to -0.06) across the 3 experiments was statistically significant (P = .01). We provide suggestive evidence that acute, short-duration exercise may help attenuate a retroactive memory interference effect. Implications of these findings for exercise to improve memory and attenuate memory decay are discussed.