Honors Theses

Date of Award

Spring 5-7-2022

Document Type

Undergraduate Thesis

Department

Health, Exercise Science, and Recreation Management

First Advisor

Paul Loprinzi

Second Advisor

Kofan Lee

Third Advisor

Alberto del Arco

Relational Format

Dissertation/Thesis

Abstract

Prior work has demonstrated that acute exercise can improve memory performance. Less research, however, has determined whether this beneficial effect occurs through exercise reducing the influence of related or interfering stimuli. Thus, the present experiment evaluated if acute exercise can improve memory by reducing the interference of similar or conflicting information. A mnemonic similarity task was used where participants studied pictures of a wide variety of objects. The retrieval portion of the task displayed a set of objects in which they had to identify as old (already studied), new, or similar. The list of objects in the retrieval phase had target objects that appeared exactly like they did in the study phase, lure objects which were similar but not the same as the original objects, and foil objects which were completely new. Participants often mistake the new lure objects as old objects (memory interference), but we anticipated that acute exercise would prevent this memory error from occurring. The participants completed a mnemonic similarity task before and after three different levels of exercise: control (no exercise), moderate (50% HRR; (heart rate reserve), and vigorous (80% HRR). Our results demonstrated evidence toward the null hypothesis. That is, acute exercise, across all intensities, did not improve memory or reduce memory interference.

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