TY - JOUR AU - Cantrelle, Justin AU - Loprinzi, Paul AU - Ferguson, Lauren PY - 2018 DA - 2018/12/17 TI - Experimental Effects of Exercise on Forgetting JO - OBM Integrative and Complementary Medicine SP - 034 VL - 03 IS - 04 AB - Background: The present study evaluates the effects of selective directed forgetting (SDF) and directed forgetting (DF) on subsequent memory retrieval and investigate whether acute exercise can facilitate the effects of SDF. Methods: A four-arm (n=20 per group; N=80; Mage=20 yrs), parallel-group, randomized controlled experiment was employed. The four groups included: 1) exercise plus SDF (Ex+SDF), 2) SDF only (SDF), 3) DF only (DF) and 4) R (remember) only (R). Participants viewed two separate word lists (list 1 and list 2; L1 and L2). Based on group assignment, participants were directed to either forget, selectively forget, or remember List 1. Outcome parameters included the number of words recalled from L1 and L2. Generally, participants directed to forget L1 tend to recall more words from L2. Thus, L1 represents forgetting whereas L2 represents the degree of memory enhancement. The exercise protocol involved a 15-minute bout of moderate-intensity treadmill exercise. Results: We observed a significant main effect for L1 Item-Type (F=18.0, P<.001, η2p=.19), a significant main effect for L2 Item-Type (F=22.5, P<.001, η2p=.23), a significant L1 Item-Type x Cue interaction (F=4.02, P=.01, η2p=.13), a marginally significant L2 Item-Type x Cue interaction (F=2.73, P=.05, η2p=.10), a non-significant L1 Item-Type x L2 Item-Type interaction (F=0.36, P=.55, η2p=.005), and a marginally significant L1 Item-Type x L2 Item-Type x Cue interaction (F=2.58, P=.06, η2p=.09). Directed forgetting facilitated forgetting, as the DF (M=1.0) group recalled fewer words than the R (M=2.10) group (P=0.006). SDF alone was not effective in facilitating L1 forgetting or L2 enhancement. That is, recall (L1 or L2) was not significantly different in SDF compared to R. Acute exercise did not facilitate a forgetting effect, as Ex+SDF was not different than SDF. Conclusions: Our results provide evidence of a DF effect, but not SDF. Further, we did not observe any effects of acute exercise in facilitating SDF. SN - 2573-4393 UR - https://doi.org/10.21926/obm.icm.1804034 DO - 10.21926/obm.icm.1804034 ID - Cantrelle2018 ER -