Premium
Determinants of Short‐term Forgetting: Decay, Retroactive Interference, or Proactive Interference?
Author(s) -
Tolan Georgina Anne,
Tehan Gerald
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
international journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.75
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 1464-066X
pISSN - 0020-7594
DOI - 10.1080/002075999399585
Subject(s) - psychology , forgetting , interference theory , cognitive psychology , recall , nonverbal communication , task (project management) , cued speech , read aloud , term (time) , think aloud protocol , communication , cognition , linguistics , working memory , computer science , neuroscience , philosophy , physics , management , reading (process) , quantum mechanics , usability , human–computer interaction , economics
In two experiments short‐term forgetting was investigated in a short‐term cued recall task designed to examine proactive interference effects. Mixed modality study lists were tested at varying retention intervals using verbal and nonverbal distractor activities. When an interfering foil was read aloud and a target item read silently, strong PI effects were observed for both types of distractor activity. When the target was read aloud and followed by a verbal distractor activity, weak PI effects emerged. However, when a target item was read aloud and nonverbal distractor activity filled the retention interval, performance was immune to the effects of PI for at least 8 seconds. The results indicate that phonological representations of items read aloud still influence performance after 15 seconds of distractor activity.