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Psychophysiological Activity and the Buildup and Release of Proactive Inhibition in Short‐Term Memory
Author(s) -
Wilson Keith G.
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
psychophysiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.661
H-Index - 156
eISSN - 1469-8986
pISSN - 0048-5772
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-8986.1984.tb00195.x
Subject(s) - psychology , recall , audiology , skin conductance , repetition (rhetorical device) , tone (literature) , orienting response , cognitive psychology , short term memory , response inhibition , developmental psychology , free recall , test (biology) , task (project management) , memoria , working memory , cognition , neuroscience , habituation , linguistics , paleontology , management , biology , economics , medicine , art , philosophy , literature , biomedical engineering
One interpretation of the buildup and release of proactive inhibition (PI) in short‐term memory is that the repetition of similar items leads to a decrement in attention which is reinstated via the orienting response (OR) when the novel shift items are presented. In a test of this hypothesis, 72 subjects performed the PI task while skin conductance and heart rate were recorded. Half the subjects received a change in semantic category on a test trial, while the other half did not. In addition, subjects differed with respect to whether the test trial also included a single presentation of a tone to which they had previously habituated, a novel tone not previously encountered, or no tone. In general, the results provided no support for the OR interpretation of PI. While the semantic change led to improved recall, it was not associated with a differential pattern of physiological responding. Furthermore, the interpolated tones resulted in dishabituation of the SCRs for the following memory items, but had no effect on memory performance.