Welcome to the Memory & Sport Project!

Are you aged 18 or over and can you spare 30 minutes to help with an exciting international study investigating the impact of playing sports on memory?

Would you like an individualised report showing how your memory compares to other people who participate in our study?

What is this study about?

Playing sports, and exercise more generally, is beneficial for many aspects of health. Indeed, exercise has been shown to reduce risk of major diseases such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes and depression.

There is also evidence exercise can be beneficial for brain function, and specifically, memory. It has even been shown to reduce the risk of developing dementia.

There is a growing body of research linking participation in contact sports, including rugby, to dementias and CTE. However, the current research and media focus is on male professional athletes. There is a lack of research collecting data from women who play rugby, despite the growing popularity and participation levels. This study aims to collect data from all levels of the adult game, both males and females.

To help us better understand the impact of sports on memory our team at Goldsmiths, University of London has developed a simple online test to measure memory performance, so that anyone can take part. The current study is being conducted by MSc student Niamh Mitchell, under the supervision of neuropsychologist Dr Ashok Jansari.

How you can help

As long as you are over 18, you can help - we need as many people as possible, of all ages.

Even if you DON’T play sports, you can participate - for the study, we need BOTH people who play any form of sports and those who don’t so that we can compare between the two, and compare across sports.

Whilst we are also highlighting the lack of research in the women’s game, we also need male participants. There is a need to investigate all levels of adult rugby.

Importantly, we are looking for ALL levels of memory, so do not worry if your memory is one of the better ones, worse ones, or just 'average' - we are interested in all of you 😃

As well as taking part yourself, you can also help by sharing details of this study with anyone else who you think might be interested in taking part – the more people that take part, the more useful our results will be.  

Please feel free to get in contact with the lead researchers if you have any questions. You can also visit ARTLab to learn about our wider research program.

What taking part requires

Participants are required to memorise pairs of words, and recall them at two later times.

The test will take around 30 minutes in total, which includes two recall tasks, one after 55 minutes and one in 24 hours time.

Contacts

If you have any questions or concerns about how the study has been conducted, please contact Niamh Mitchell (nmitc003@gold.ac.uk) or Dr Ashok Jansari (a.jansari@gold.ac.uk).

Take part.

To get started first tell us whether you are a new participant, or a returning participant.

In advance, thank you!