Recent studies showed that performing a 2-Back during post-encoding had similar facilitating effects on memory consolidation as wakeful rest, possibly due to a balance between the interreference...Show moreRecent studies showed that performing a 2-Back during post-encoding had similar facilitating effects on memory consolidation as wakeful rest, possibly due to a balance between the interreference effects of autobiographical thinking (suppressed during 2-Back) and the facilitating effects of offline replay (increased during rest) on memory consolidation. The current study investigates the relationship between autobiographical thinking and memory consolidation in a within-subjects design, by comparing two post-encoding periods differing in task difficulty: 0-Back and 2-Back. Participants (N = 22) performed two sessions of three blocks; an encoding task, a 15-minute post-encoding period, and a recognition task. Autobiographical thinking was measured via experience-sampling thought probes. We predicted autobiographical thinking to interfere with consolidation and more autobiographical thinking during the 0-Back compared to the 2-Back. We also expected equal memory consolidation across conditions, assuming increased offline replay during the 0-Back. As hypothesized, autobiographical thinking was higher during the 0-Back than during the 2-Back, and results showed no difference in memory consolidation across the post-encoding conditions. The present findings did not show a direct relationship between autobiographical thinking during post-encoding and consolidation. We argue that the failure to detect a relationship can be explained by the current study being underpowered, due to small sample size and the number of thought probes. In conclusion, results do show that manipulating task difficulty of the n-Back can be an effective method to affect autobiographical thinking. However, the relationship of autobiographical thinking and memory consolidation remains unclear, and requires further research.Show less