The Effects of Proactive Interference in Memory Span Performance

Running head: The Effects of Proactive Interference in Memory Span Performance

The Effects of Proactive Interference in Memory Span Performance

By: Paulo Davila

Subject: Final Paper

Professor: Dr. Vaden

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Abstract

The present study examined the role of proactive interference in memory span.

The experiment was a between group study where both groups were given a memory

span test and one group experienced a proactive interference condition (two lists of words

that were in the same category of the words shown in the memory span test). The primary

hypothesis was that the group with proactive interference would perform poorly in

comparison to the opposing group. An independent t-test revealed that the interference

manipulation provided no significance between the two groups.


The Effects of Proactive Interference in Memory Span Performance

Proactive interference is when prior knowledge of a subject interferes with the

learning and recall of new incoming information (Wahlheim, 2012). An example of

proactive interference can be seen when a person is asked to recite their phone number

after they have obtained a new phone number that replaces the old one. When asked to

recite their phone number, the person recites their old number instead of the new number.

The person has already memorized their old number and also recited the old number a

numerous amount of times, which is causing interference recalling and learning their new

phone number. This example was one of numerous ways proactive interference effects

memory span. The amount of exposure to proactive interference is an important factor

that affects memory span (Knight and Gray, 1967). The effects of proactive interference

have been extensively studied along with other variables, such as age and language. The

purpose of this study is to observe the memory span performance of participants who

were subjected to proactive interference versus participants who have not been subjected

to proactive interference.

Proactive interference and its effects have been studied thoroughly, especially

with age differences. Studies suggest that older adults, usually refering to adults between

the ages of 60 to 75, are much more negatively impacted by proactive interference in

comparison to young adults, usually refering to adults between the ages 18 to 25 (Bowles,

2007;Emery, Hale, Myerson, 2008; Zeintl, Kliegel, 2010). A study by Kane, Hasher, and

May (1999) was performed to see if proactive interference affects people of different

ages differently. The participants were separated into two groups (young adults and older

adults). The ages of young adults were 18 to 21 and the ages for older adults were 60 to

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75. During the experiment, both groups were asked to take a series of memory span tests.

After the experiment was done, the results showed that the memory span test score for the

older adult group were lower than the young adult group. This study shows that older

adults are much more susceptible to proactive interference than younger adults.

Ikier, Hasher, and Yang (2008) performed the second study on the correlation

between age and proactive interference .The study was performed to see if implicit

memory shows interference in memory span and whether the effect is greater in older

participants. The study had two groups of participants (young adults and old adults). The

age for young adults was 18 to 27 years old and the older adults were from ages 59 to 75

years old. The participants were given a series of words with a target word, such as

ALLERGY, that was followed by a non-target word, such as ANALOGY. After the list

was presented, the participants were given word fragments, such as A_L__GY, and asked

to fill in the blanks. The results were that older adults experience larger negative effects

from proactive interference in comparison to younger adults.

Along with studying the impact of proactive interference on memory span, a

study has also been conducted to observe how the effects of proactive interference can be

reduced. A study conducted by Jacoby, Wahlheim, Rhodes, Daniels & Rogers (2010)

observed how a prior exposure to proactive interference reduces the effects of future

proactive interference. The procedure to this experiment was to administer two rounds of

memory span tasks to participants. The two rounds involved a memory span task with

proactive interference and the participants were given feedback on whether they chose

the wrong series of words. The first round showed that participants suffered from false

memory due to the proactive interference. False memory is the recollection of non-


existing events when trying to retrieve a certain memory (Roediger&McDermott, 1995).

The results for the second round showed that scores improved due to the fact the

participants were aware of the interference. Another study by Lacher and Goggin (1969)

showed that making a change in word length could reduce proactive interference. The

experiment consisted of eleven memory span trials that manipulated word length. The

first four trials were words of the same length while the following three trials consisted of

a different word length. The last four trials were a variation of different word lengths.

The results showed that word length determined the impact of proactive interference.

Another method of reducing proactive interference was observed by Underwood

and Ekstrand (1965). The experiment consisted of two pairs of word lists (A-B, A-C).

The participants were divided into two groups where one half of the participants did a

mass study of the words in one day and the other half were told to study the list in a four

day distribution. Once the studying has been done, the participants were given a memory

span test on the second pair of word list (A-C). The results showed that proactive

interference had greater impact on the group who mass studied the list within a day in

comparison to the group who studied in a four-day distribution.

A second study by Caretti, Mammarella, Borella (2012) was performed to observe

the benefit of reducing proactive interference between three age groups. This specific

study aimed for a larger amount of sample groups in comparison to older studies. The

participants were broken down into three groups young adults (ages 25 to 30), young-old

adults (ages 65 to 75) , and old-old adults (ages greater than 75). The memory span given

was a list of words in ascending and then descending order of list length. The results from

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this experiment showed that young adults had no benefit in proactive interference

reduction but the young-old adults and old-old adults did benefit.

The importance and relevance of PI can be seen outside of traditional memory

span test in context such as video games. According to Karle, Watter, Sheddon (2009),

video gamers use selective attention during gameplay but they are still vulnerable to

proactive interference. The participants in this study were categorized into two groups,

expert video game players (VGP) and no expert video game players (nVGP). The trials

consisted of task switching with minimal to no PI and no PI during task switching. The

VGPs displayed advanced proficiency during the no interference trials, where as nVGPs

showed poor performance. When both groups were introduced with PI during task switch

trials, both performed poorly. This study establishes that PI can still present itself

negatively in experienced SMEs.

A study was done by Nikolova (2008) to observe if bilinguals are less effect by

proactive interference than monolinguals. Nickolova hypothesized that bilinguals will be

less affected by proactive interference due to their constant exposure to two languages.

The two groups were administered a short-term memory task using words along with

proactive interference. The results show that bilingual participants were less affected by

proactive interference in comparison to monolingual participants. The experimenter

concluded that bilingual participants were much more efficient on removing non-relevant

information from working memory.

A study was done to observe the impact of proactive interference between

bilingual and monolingual participants by Bialystok and Feng (2009). The participants

were broken down into two groups of bilinguals and monolinguals. Within each group


there was a two more sub groups of adults and children. All groups were given a memory

span task that consisted of vocabulary words and then they were given the same task with

proactive interference. In the standard vocabulary memory span bilinguals did poorly in

comparison to monolinguals. During the vocabulary memory span task all groups were

given feed back about the errors they have committed. In the proactive interference

memory span task, both bilinguals and monolinguals performed the same. The results

show that the bilingual children recalled the same number of words during the proactive

interference as the non-proactive interference task. The bilingual adults were not as

affected by proactive interference as the monolinguals. The experimenter explains that

the reason bilingual adults were not as affected was due to the fact that bilingual adults

have to compensate for weaker language proficiency with greater of control of working

memory.

The purpose of this study was to observe the impact proactive interference has

memory span. Studies have shown the importance of proactive interference during

memory span tasks (Knight and Gray, 1967). We hypothesized that the group exposed to

proactive interference will perform poorly during a memory span task in comparison to

the group who has not been exposed to proactive interference.

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Methods

Participants

Participants were recruited in the two following ways: class participation and

random selection. A small presentation was given in psychology classes at Embry-Riddle

Aeronautical University about the experiment in order to recruit volunteers. In certain

classes professors allowed the participants to receive extra credit for participating.

During the random recruitment, randomly selected individuals were recruited at Embry-

Riddle Aeronautical University„s library. The only requirement the participants had to

meet was to be currently enrolled in class at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

Before proceeding with the experiment, a laboratory setting was chosen in order

to eliminate any external distractions. The participants were then broken into two groups

of ten and escorted to the appropriate rooms. Both groups were given a full verbal and

written explanation of the experiment procedures and a written form of consent with the

option to withdraw from the experiment at any given time. In order to eliminate any bias

the participants were assigned numbers that they used to register their data.

Instruments

The instrument used to administer the exam and retain participant data was

Wads worth Cog Lab version 1.0. The software SPSS, a statistical analysis program, was

used when analyzing data. Each participant was provided with his or her own individual

computer.

Procedure

For Group A, the participants were asked to register into the program using their

assigned numbers. Once they logged in they began to take the memory span test. The


memory span test involved a sequence of items appearing on the left portion of the

window. Each was flashed for exactly one second. After the sequence of items came to

an end, a nine choice word-button bank will appear on the right side of the window. The

word bank contained all the items from the original sequence and distractors. The

participants were asked to click on the items of the sequence in the order that they were

presented. Once the first trial was, finished the participants were told to continue

completing all 25 trials by clicking on the „Next Trial‟ button. While the participants

were shown the sequence of items they were not allowed to use any help (such as pen and

paper) to recall these items.

The memory span test involved five trials for five different types of stimuli. The

stimuli are numbers, letters that sound different, letters that sound the same, short words,

and long words. Each trial had different sequence lengths, three to nine items shown

within one-second intervals, and each trial was presented randomly. Providing a correct

response to the trial involved recalling all items of the sequence in the order shown. The

participants were informed that there was no way to correct any mistakes. After every

trial they were presented with feedback about their response but just showing either

“Correct” or “Incorrect”. If the participant was correct the list of items will be one item

longer but if they are incorrect they will be one item shorter.

For Group B, the proactive interference during a memory span task was

manipulated. Prior to the actual test, Group B received a study sheet with a list of short

words and long words. The list was composed of words that were either in the same

category of the items provided in the test or synonyms. The study sheet provided short

and long words due to the fact that only short words and long words data was to be

1 Running head: The Effects of Proactive Interference in Memory Span Performance
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analyzed. The participants of Group B were asked to study the list by rewriting every

word of the list three times. The maximum allowed study time was five minutes. After

being able to study the sheet, the participants took the same exact test as Group A and

followed the same instructions for the memory span test.


Results

The mean list length recalled for the proactive interference group was

5.75(SD=1.03) for long words. The mean list length for the non-proactive interference

group was 4(SD=1.06) for short words and 4(1.06) for long words. Based on the

independent sample t-test, there was no significant difference in short word list length

between the non-proactive interference group and the proactive interference in list length,

t(14)=3.26, p=0.506. Based on the independent sample t-test, there was no significant

difference in long word list length between the non-proactive interference group and the

proactive interference in list length, t(14)=3.86, p=0.298.

Discussion

The present experiment observed the impact of proactive interference on memory

span performance. The expected outcome was that there should be a significant

difference between the non-proactive interference group and the proactive interference

group. Results obtained from the study suggests that the effect of proactive interference

was not significant. Proactive interference should have resulted in a difference between

the two groups according to a study performed by Kane, Hasher, and May (1999), where

a significant effect of proactive interference in memory span was reported.

Differences between the present study and Kane, Hasher, and May can be seen in

the differences between the sample groups, where age was not a factor being evaluated in

the present study. An alternative explanation may result from the method of study within

the proactive interference group. During the experiment the proactive interference group

had three to five minutes to study two lists of words before proceeding to the memory

span test. The method of studying the list of words was left to the participants‟ own

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discretion. Participants may have avoided the actual studying portion of the experiment

or they may have had chosen an ineffective study method. A third explanation is the

experimenter‟s poor choice of a proactive interference method. The proactive

interference method might have been too deviated from the actual memory span task,

where instead of studying the list of words participants should have performed a memory

span test with a different set of instructions (i.e., The participants should have eliminated

the words that weren‟t present in the list from the choice box rather than recalling the

words shown) prior to the original memory span test.


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The Effects of Proactive Interference in Memory Span Performance

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