STATE-DEPENDENT MEMORY PRODUCED BY AEROBIC EXERCISE

In a free recall experiment, participants learned lists of words in tw o physiological states: at rest and while exercising aerobically on a bicycle ergometer. Recall of the words was required in either the stat e consistent with learning or in the alternative state. Word lists lea rned during aerobic exercise were recalled best during aerobic exercis e and vice versa. Greater changes in heart rate in the changed state c onditions were associated with greater retrieval decrements. Recall le vels for words both learned and recalled at exercise were equivalent t o those for words both learned and recalled at rest. This finding rule s out the possibility that exercise per se interfered with the origina l learning. The study is consistent with the view that state-dependent memory should be viewed as a particular form of cue-dependent memory.