Thesis
Memory consolidation and interference resistance with sleep disturbances
Master of Science (M.S.), Drexel University
Jun 2012
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17918/00008297
Abstract
Daytime functional impairments in primary insomnia remain subjective in nature due to the lack of consistent, objective measurements of impaired daytime functioning. Once specific domains of impairment can be defined with accurate neuropsychological measures, better treatments for performance deficits will be able to be designed. Declarative memory consolidation is a domain of functioning that remains understudied within populations that report primary sleep disturbances. This experiment examined verbal declarative memory consolidation in college-aged participants using an (A-B, A-C) future interference paradigm. There were 28 participants divided into two groups with 13 participants in a sleep-disturbed group and 15 participants in a healthy control group. The sleep-disturbed group met both the quantitative research criteria (Lichstein, Durrence, Taylor, Bush, & Riedel, 2003) and Insomnia Severity Index criteria. This design was utilized in an attempt to detect differences in delayed recall of word-pair associate lists, both before and after interference testing in a two-way factorial repeated measures ANCOVA design. It was hypothesized that recall would decrease after interference testing. Both groups did experience significantly decreased delayed recall after interference testing, however there were no significant differences between groups. These results suggest that the sleep-disturbed students from this study do not have impaired declarative memory consolidation or impaired resistance to future interference, relative to their healthy peers. The findings from this study provide important implications for the future search for daytime impairments in primary insomnia.
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Details
- Title
- Memory consolidation and interference resistance with sleep disturbances
- Creators
- Charles Brandon Corbitt
- Contributors
- Maria Christina Coletta (Advisor) - Drexel University, Drexel University (1970-)
- Awarding Institution
- Drexel University
- Degree Awarded
- Master of Science (M.S.)
- Publisher
- Drexel University; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Number of pages
- vii, 98 pages
- Resource Type
- Thesis
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Psychological and Brain Sciences (Psychology); College of Arts and Sciences; Drexel University
- Other Identifier
- 991021888737004721