Dual-task interference between climbing and a simulated communication task

Climbers often need to maintain communication with other people. Previous research indicates that climbers remember less of the information communicated to them while climbing than when not climbing. In the present research, we investigated at what stage of memory the source of this impairment occurs. Participants were required to respond to words presented to them by saying out loud an associated word. This enforced encoding of the words, and was completed alone, as well as while climbing. Participants then recalled as many words as possible. A separate single-task condition had participants climb without making word associations. Word recall was reduced in the dual-task compared with the single word association task, but there was no difference in the number of word associations made. This indicates that the reduction in word recall was not a result of reduced encoding in the dual-task condition. Concurrent climbing may have reduced word recall by interfering with rehearsal and maintenance of words in memory.