Cognitive effort on the susceptibility to interference in memory consolidation

• Grant number: 13/24847-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: August 01, 2014
• End date: July 31, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Cognitive Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Orlando Francisco Amodeo Bueno
• Grantee: Marcus Vinicius Costa Alves
• Host Institution: Escola Paulista de Medicina (EPM). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus São Paulo. São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 16/22257-1 - Using pupillometry to quantify mental effort and the intrusion of unwanted memories during retrieval suppression, BE.EP.DR

Abstract

Forgetting is the inability to retrieve information that could be retrieved before. The Interference Theory points that information tend to dispute for the existence when learned. This probably being the cause of forgetting, The Memory Consolidation is a process that occurs to the stabilization of new memories with the time. This process can be affected by the introduction of interfering stimulus and tasks, and the cognitive effort to realize that tasks can be a cause of the interference. Therefore, the present study aims to investigate in three experiments with healthy participants how such interference occurs. The participants will be presented with lists of words to posterior free recall and recognition. To measure the cognitive effort in those tasks, the pupil dilation measured. In the Experiment I (N - 30), we will test how tasks cause interference in the beginning of the consolidation process. In the Experiment II (N - 30), we will test how groups of demanding tasks influence the consolidation process. In the Experiment III (N - 30), the participants will do the tasks in a long interval, and we will analyze how that long duration of tasks can interfere with consolidation. (AU)