Schedule of Events | Symposia

Sketchpad Series

The role of sleep and dreaming in autobiographical memory consolidation: one year delay

Poster Session C - Sunday, March 30, 2025, 5:00 – 7:00 pm EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Nelly Matorina¹ (nelly.matorina@mail.utoronto.ca), Jeya Scott¹, Morgan Barense^1,2; ¹University of Toronto, ²Rotman Research Institute

Sleep plays a role in memory consolidation for laboratory-based stimuli, but much less is known about how sleep impacts memory for real-word, autobiographical events. To answer this question, we used a smartphone application called the HippoCamera, which allows participants to record high fidelity videos and audio clips in their daily lives that function as memory cues. We have previously shown that sleep, compared to wake, preserves autobiographical memory richness over short 12-hour delays and that dreaming about an autobiographical memory impacts the emotion associated with the memory. We were also interested in how dreaming and proximity to sleep impacts autobiographical memory at a one-year delay. Participants completed the Autobiographical Interview for each of the memory cues that they recorded and answered questions about each memory on richness and emotion (n = 3, data collection ongoing). We anticipate that memories proximal to sleep will be better remembered at a one-year delay and that dreaming about an autobiographical memory will lead to preserved emotion for that event at a one-year delay. This research will demonstrate whether proximity to sleep for real-word events has long-term impact for the memories we retain, and whether dreaming about an autobiographical memory prioritizes that event for long-term consolidation.

Topic Area: LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic