A vibroshaper is a training device that promises weight loss and muscle formation. The impact on cognitive performance has not been addressed although it is known that whole-body vibrations have detrimental effects on short-term memory. We investigated the impact of an exposure to a vibroshaper on free recall performance. We also tested the transfer-appropriate processing (TAP) hypothesis. At study, the participants learned a 30-item wordlist. Eighty participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: Shaken/not shaken at study and test, not shaken at study but shaken at test or vice versa. We expected better memory performance for the overlap conditions and lower memory performance for the shaken conditions as vibrations might disrupt cognitive mechanisms. The results showed no effects at all. Thus, a short exposure to a vibroshaper does not affect memory but we cannot rule out that a longer exposure may affect memory and also reveal TAP effects.
