Abstract
interference by our cued autobiographical retrieval/future imagination delay condition could not be accounted for by the sound cues alone or by executive retrieval processes. Moreover, our results demonstrated evidence of a temporal gradient of interference across experiments. Thus, we propose that rich autobiographical retrieval/future imagination hampers the consolidation of recently acquired episodic memories and that such interference is particularly likely in the presence of external concrete cues.
| Language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages | 1-9 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | PLoS ONE |
| Volume | 9 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 15 Apr 2014 |
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Autobiographical thinking interferes with episodic memory consolidation. / Craig, Michael; Della Sala, Sergio; Dewar, Michaela T.
In: PLoS ONE, Vol. 9, No. 4, 15.04.2014, p. 1-9.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
TY - JOUR
T1 - Autobiographical thinking interferes with episodic memory consolidation
AU - Craig, Michael
AU - Della Sala, Sergio
AU - Dewar, Michaela T
PY - 2014/4/15
Y1 - 2014/4/15
N2 - New episodic memories are retained better if learning is followed by a few minutes of wakeful rest than by the encoding of novel external information. Novel encoding is said to interfere with the consolidation of recently acquired episodic memories. Here we report four experiments in which we examined whether autobiographical thinking, i.e. an ‘internal’ memory activity, also interferes with episodic memory consolidation. Participants were presented with three wordlists consisting of common nouns; one list was followed by wakeful rest, one by novel picture encoding and one by autobiographical retrieval/future imagination, cued by concrete sounds. Both novel encoding and autobiographical retrieval/future imagination lowered wordlist retention significantly. Follow-up experiments demonstrated that theinterference by our cued autobiographical retrieval/future imagination delay condition could not be accounted for by the sound cues alone or by executive retrieval processes. Moreover, our results demonstrated evidence of a temporal gradient of interference across experiments. Thus, we propose that rich autobiographical retrieval/future imagination hampers the consolidation of recently acquired episodic memories and that such interference is particularly likely in the presence of external concrete cues.
AB - New episodic memories are retained better if learning is followed by a few minutes of wakeful rest than by the encoding of novel external information. Novel encoding is said to interfere with the consolidation of recently acquired episodic memories. Here we report four experiments in which we examined whether autobiographical thinking, i.e. an ‘internal’ memory activity, also interferes with episodic memory consolidation. Participants were presented with three wordlists consisting of common nouns; one list was followed by wakeful rest, one by novel picture encoding and one by autobiographical retrieval/future imagination, cued by concrete sounds. Both novel encoding and autobiographical retrieval/future imagination lowered wordlist retention significantly. Follow-up experiments demonstrated that theinterference by our cued autobiographical retrieval/future imagination delay condition could not be accounted for by the sound cues alone or by executive retrieval processes. Moreover, our results demonstrated evidence of a temporal gradient of interference across experiments. Thus, we propose that rich autobiographical retrieval/future imagination hampers the consolidation of recently acquired episodic memories and that such interference is particularly likely in the presence of external concrete cues.
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0093915
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0093915
M3 - Article
VL - 9
SP - 1
EP - 9
JO - PLoS ONE
T2 - PLoS ONE
JF - PLoS ONE
SN - 1932-6203
IS - 4
ER -