Behavioural interference at event boundaries reduces long-term memory performance in the virtual water maze task without affecting working memory performance

This effect has been alternatively linked with rapid hippocampal processes related to memory consolidation and triggered by the offset of the event, or with working memory processes. Here we tested whether this effect extended to spatial memory, the temporal specificity and extent of interference and its effect on working- vs long-term memory.

In three computerized adaptations of the Morris Water Maze participants learned the location of an invisible target over three trials each. A second spatial navigation task was presented either immediately after finding the target, after a 10-second delay, or no second task was presented (control condition). A recall session, in which participants indicated the learned target location with 10 ‘pin-drop’ trials for each condition, was performed after a 1-hour or a 24-hour break.