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• aim


  to investigate wether high levels of cortisol interfere w verbal declarative memory
• sample


  18-30 yrs old healthy employees or students from washington uni
• procedure

  -prtcpts were matched for age and gender to 1 of 3 conditions

  -condition 1: high levels of cortisol: prtcps were given a tablet of 160 mg of cortisol on each day of the 4 day experiment.

  -condition 2: low levels of cortisol: prtcpts were given a tablet of 40 mg per day-similar to cortisol levels in ppl experiencing a low level stressor

  -condition 3: placebo grp.

  -All prtcpts were asked to listen to and recall parts of a prose paragraph

  -each day they were given a different piece of prose w the same level of difficulty, they were tested 3 times.

  -once before taking the tablet, once after taking the tablet and again 4 days later.
• results


  indicated that high levels of cortisol impaired performance in the memory tasks since prtcpts in the first condition performed the worst in verbal declarative memory. however, this effect was not permanent as their performance returned to normal after they stopped taking the hormone tablet.
• conclusion

  according to researchers, these results demonstarte a clear line btwn levels of cortisol and remembering. it's shown that high levels of cortisol interfered w the recall of the prose passage whereas moderate levels of cortisol may have actually assisted in the recall of the passage. this makes sense as there are cortisol receptor sites in the hippocampus which is responsible for the transfer of info from the STM to the LTM and vice versa
• implication


  high levels of stress effect memory