MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Noah Forrin, PhD Postdoctoral fellow in Psychology University of Waterloo  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Everyday experience suggests that people have poor memory for information that they encounter prior to their own public performance.  For example, prior to giving a presentation at school or at work, people often struggle to remember information from a presentation that occurred before their own. n our study, we tested the hypothesis that performance anticipation reduces memory for pre-performance information.  We found that when participants anticipated a simple upcoming presentation--reading words out loud in front of someone else--their memory was diminished prior to reading those words out loud.  Memory may be reduced in this way because people are thinking about their upcoming performance or because they are anxious (i.e., performance anxiety). (more…)