Kimberly Fenn

Associate Professor of Psychology, Director of the Sleep and Learning Lab Michigan State University

  • East Lansing MI

An expert on the effect of sleep on learning and memory

Contact

Michigan State University

View more experts managed by Michigan State University

Media

Biography

Fenn directs the Sleep and Learning Lab in the Department of Psychology. She studies the impact of sleep on memory, the effect of lack of sleep on memory, the effect of fitness on memory and other issues related to memory and learning.

Industry Expertise

Health Care - Facilities
Health and Wellness
Mental Health Care
Research

Areas of Expertise

Sleep Deprivation and Memory
Sleep Deprivation
Sleep
Sleep and Human Performance
Fitness and Memory
Memory
Sleep and Learning

Accomplishments

Fellow

Association for Psychological Science

Education

The University of Chicago

Ph.D.

Psychology

2006

The University of Chicago

M.A.

Social Sciences

2000

Affiliations

  • Consulting Editor: Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

News

It can take more than a week to recover from days of sleep deprivation

Healthline  online

2021-09-01

Kimberly Fenn, an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at Michigan State University, who was not a part of the study, did note, however, that the study had a small sample size and should be interpreted with caution. But, she added, it is consistent with what many sleep scientists believe: Insufficient sleep can cause long-term damage. “I think that this study, and others, raise a critical question regarding the extent to which individuals are able to recover from sleep loss,” said Fenn. “Although the study is a bit underpowered and warrants replication, I think that it exposes the public to the dangers of sleep deprivation.

View More

Living pharmacies could remedy disrupted sleep

Neo.Life  online

2021-07-01

A multimillion-dollar program from the U.S. military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is seeking to develop an “internal pharmacy” in the form of an implantable device containing a set of bioengineered cells and a small LED light that would trigger the release of specific biomolecules on demand to counter the effects of jet lag and traveler’s diarrhea—two conditions that can seriously impede soldiers’ health and performance. “You can imagine an individual who’s engaged in combat maybe is not thinking about their sleep when they’re on active duty,” says Kimberly Fenn, a circadian rhythm researcher at the Michigan State University who is not involved in the project.

View More

Caffeine can only help so much if you don’t get enough sleep

Healthline  online

2021-06-07

Caffeine may keep you alert enough to take on tasks if you’re short on sleep, but you probably won’t do them particularly well. The researchers noted that caffeine did help in some instances. “We found that sleep deprivation impaired performance on both types of tasks and that having caffeine helped people successfully achieve the easier task,” said Kimberly Fenn, an associate professor in the department of psychology at Michigan State University, in a press release. “However, it had little effect on performance on the place-keeping task for most participants.”

View More

Show All +

Journal Articles

Effects of sleep deprivation on procedural errors.

J Exp Psychol Gen

Stepan ME, Fenn KM, Altmann EM

2018

In a large sample (N = 234), we tested effects of 24-hr of sleep deprivation on error rates in a procedural task that requires memory maintenance of task-relevant information. In the evening, participants completed the task under double-blind conditions and then either stayed awake in the lab overnight or slept at home. In the morning, participants completed the task again. Sleep-deprived participants were more likely to suffer a general breakdown in ability (or willingness) to meet a modest accuracy criterion they had met the night before.

View more

Negativity bias in false memory: moderation by neuroticism after a delay.

Cogn Emot.

Norris CJ, Leaf PT, Fenn KM.

2018

The negativity bias is the tendency for individuals to give greater weight, and often exhibit more rapid and extreme responses, to negative than positive information. Using the Deese-Roediger-McDermott illusory memory paradigm, the current study sought to examine how the negativity bias might affect both correct recognition for negative and positive words and false recognition for associated critical lures, as well as how trait neuroticism might moderate these effects. In two experiments, participants studied lists of words composed of semantic associates of an unpresented word (the critical lure).

View more

Sleep and eyewitness memory: Fewer false identifications after sleep when the target is absent from the lineup.

PLoS One

Stepan ME, Dehnke TM, Fenn KM.

2017

Inaccurate eyewitness identifications are the leading cause of known false convictions in the United States. Moreover, improving eyewitness memory is difficult and often unsuccessful. Sleep consistently strengthens and protects memory from interference, particularly when a recall test is used. However, the effect of sleep on recognition memory is more equivocal. Eyewitness identification tests are often recognition based, thus leaving open the question of how sleep affects recognition performance in an eyewitness context. In the current study, we investigated the effect of sleep on eyewitness memory.

View more

Show All +