Introduction to Cognitive Psychology - Department of Psychological ...

Prof. Greg Francis 1/2/13Proactive interferenceOne finds proactive interference for lots of memory tasksCogLab serial position experiment I looked at recall of the first letter in each list, averaged acrossall studentsProportion of times firstletter is recalled10.950.90.850.80.750.70.650.61 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15TrialPurdue UniversityRelease from PIProactive interference weakens for differentstimulus typesRun two Brown-Peterson type experimentsControlExperimentalXJFTrial 1 XJFWRMTrial 2 WRMDBLTrial 3 DBLNRXTrial 4 942Purdue UniversityRelease from PIRelease from PITrials 1-3 show build up of PIExperimental group shows release of PI onTrial 4Percentage correct1008060Control40Experiment2001 2 3 4Trial Purdue UniversityWorks for many kinds of memory tasksMany kinds of stimuli5, 7, 9, 1vs5, 7, 9, HANDNews storiesD, D, D, DvsD, D, D, FNICE, SUNNY, ENJOY, PUPPYvsNICE, SUNNY, ENJOY, KILLPurdue UniversityMemory systemWorking memoryEvery memory system must have at least twocomponents/processes Storage retrievalWe have described proactive interference as beingdue to difficulty discriminating new items fromprevious itemsBut there is an alternative explanation Proactive interference might prevent items from beingstored and thereby make them unrecallableFor example, working memory has a storageinterference hypothesis for the phonological loopWorking memory suggests that interference canoccur by blocking ACP rehearsal (articulatory suppression,Brown-Peterson task, word length effect) within the PS when items sound similar both of these block the storage of items (items fall out of theloop)Purdue UniversityPurdue UniversityPSY 200: Intro. to Cognitive Psychology 3