Time-of-day and circadian typology on memory retrieval

Abstract

The cognitive functioning varies during the day and it can be modulated by the time in which individuals reach their arousal peak during the day. Morning-types should have cognitive peak in the morning while evening-types should have cognitive peak in the evening, reflecting the synchrony effect. The aim was to investigate time-of-day and synchrony effects on long-term memory with a network-like structure, using semantic classification and number-matching tasks. Evening- and morning-types performed two tasks in three times of the day: morning, afternoon and evening. In semantic classification task, a time-of-day effect was found while synchrony effect did not. Moreover, the circadian typology seemed to modulate the retrieval efficiency from long-term memory. In number-matching task, no time-of-day as well as synchrony effects were reliable. As before, the circadian typology seemed to influence the retrieval of semantic information. The study may demonstrate that circadian typology seems to differ for the strategies in retrieval information from memory with a network-like structure.

Keywords:

• time-of-day effect
• circadian typology
• synchrony effect
• arithmetic facts
• semantic priming