Memory suppression under sleep deprivation: the effects of sleep loss and sleep time on suppressing unwanted memories.

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of acute partial sleep deprivation and long-term sleep patterns on performance on the Think/No-Think memory suppression task. The executive deficit hypothesis (Levy & Anderson, 2008) posited that individual differences in executive control can impact suppression task performance and hence, it was hypothesised that sleep differences, due to their influence on executive function, would cause deficits in inhibition. The Think/No-Think task involves learning a set of word pairs, then suppressing some of them by intentionally avoiding thinking of them. Participants were exposed to each word stimulus for a total of 12 repetitions during manipulation. Recall of suppressed and non-suppressed items were compared with both same probe and independent probe conditions to evaluate the effect of suppression. Suppressed No-Think items were recalled less frequently than Baseline items. Participants who underwent three hours of partial sleep deprivation the night before completing the task (N = 19) had their performance compared with fully rested controls (N = 22). Neither three hours of sleep deprivation nor average total sleep time influenced suppression task performance. This study has demonstrated that partial sleep deprivation of 3 hours does not adversely affect memory suppression.