Honors Theses
Date of Award
Spring 5-2-2024
Document Type
Undergraduate Thesis
Department
Health, Exercise Science, and Recreation Management
First Advisor
Paul Loprinzi
Second Advisor
Jeremy Loenneke
Third Advisor
Alberto Del Arco
Relational Format
Thesis
Abstract
Extensive research shows that acute exercise can improve long-term episodic memory function. However, it is unknown whether individual differences in baseline memory moderate the effects of acute exercise on memory performance. The purpose of this study was to evaluate if baseline memory plays a role in the exercise-memory relationship. One hundred and fifty university students completed a within-subject experiment involving four laboratory visits. The two main condition sessions included (1) a 20-minute vigorous-intensity exercise session with a memory encoding task and (2) a 20-minute rest session with a memory encoding task. The memory assessment involved learning and encoding a list of 15 words. The other two visits took place 24 hours after the condition, during which the participant was asked to free recall the words they had encoded a day prior. To investigate our goal, a 2 (Condition: Rest, Vigorous) × 3 (Baseline Individual Memory Difference: low, middle, and upper tertiles) mixed-measures ANOVA will need to be computed when data collection is complete. To avoid inflating the type 1 error rate, we did not perform any inferential statistics for this thesis given that this is an ongoing project with additional (n = 100) data collection that still needs to be completed. Nonetheless our results show that the mean (SD) number of words recalled (out of 15) in the control and exercise conditions, respectively, were 6.79 (2.8) and 7.31 (2.6). Additionally, after the 24-hr delay period, the mean (SD) number of words recalled (out of 15) in the control and exercise conditions, respectively, were 5.65 (3.2) and 6.31 (2.9). These descriptive results point to an increase in memory performance following exercise. Further, based on our current sample of 150 participants (total sample will be 250), our findings suggest that acute exercise does improve long-term memory function and we will likely have sufficient variability in our individual differences memory variable to evaluate it as a moderator once we finish data collection.
Recommended Citation
Mann, Margaret Reese and Loprinzi, Paul D., "The Effects of Acute Exercise on Long-Term Memory: Individual Differences in Baseline Memory Performance" (2024). Honors Theses. 3084.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis/3084
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