The effects of smoking on memory consolidation

The effects of smoking deprivation and of smoking a single .8 mg, 1.3 mg or 2 mg nicotine yield cigarette, immediately post acquisition on a paired-associate learning task, were studied in 54 male smokers and 15 male nonsmokers. Subjects were retested for retention of the memorized material at intervals of one-half hour, one day, one week, and one month. Nonsmokers showed superior recall to all smokers at one-half-hour retest, and to some of the smoking groups on later re-tests. At one-month retest the low- and middle-nicotine cigarette smokers outperformed high-nicotine cigarette smokers. Low/middle-nicotine smokers achieved superior recall to nonsmokers at one-month retest. Results are discussed in terms of smoker versus nonsmoker differences, in terms of the effects of nicotine on memory consolidation, and in terms of the PAL response measure adopted.