Abstract
While there is evidence that prolonged sedentary behaviors (SB) are associated with poor memory performance, less is known about the effect of SB on subjective memory. Poor subjective memory could be an early symptom of mild cognitive impairment or dementia. Besides SB, sleep quality has been identified as an essential component of cognitive health. Yet little is known about the effects of different types of SB on sleep quality and how such effects could, in turn, affect middle-aged adults’ subjective memory. The sample included 306 adults ranging in age from 40 to 60 (M = 44.42) from Amazon MTurk. Mediation analysis with PROCESS (Hayes, 2013) was used to examine the mediational path, controlling for demographic variables. Exploratory factor analysis categorized 10 different sedentary activities into Common Engaging SB (e.g., sitting in cars), High Engaging/Leisure SB (e.g., doing hobbies when sitting), and Less Engaging/Passive SB (e.g., watching TV). Common Engaging SB included a variety of behaviors, including transportation, reading, talking on the phone, and socializing. Common Engaging SB had a significant direct effect on sleep quality (B = 0.19, p < .001) and frequency of forgetting (B = -1.61, p < .001), and sleep quality had a significant direct effect on frequency of forgetting (B = -1.90, p < .001). Sleep quality mediated the association between Common Engaging SB and frequency of forgetting (indirect effect = -0.05, 95% bootstrap CI = -0.09, -0.02). Reducing sitting time, particularly Common Engaging SB, could be a useful strategy to improve subjective memory functioning.