Showing papers on "Interference theory published in 1972"

Short-term retention of tactile stimulation.

Abstract: In three experiments subjects were required to reproduce after varying delays the locus of a tactile stimulation delivered to the upper-side of the arm. During the retention periods subjects either performed a subsidiary, arithmetic task or rested. Recall, as measured by accuracy in reproducing the locus of stimulation, decreased as a function of retention interval, asymptoting after approximately 5 s. Performance was poorer in the subsidiary task condition than in the rest condition; however, the effect of the subsidiary task appeared to be more on subject recall strategies than on rehearsal capacity. No evidence of proactive interference effects was found, and a decay interpretation of forgetting of discrete tactile stimuli in the short-term memory distractor paradigm was favoured.

Some features of the dorsolateral frontal and inferotemporal syndromes in monkeys.

Abstract: Our frontal- and temporal-lobe experiments to date support the following conclusions. Anterior temporal or inferotemporal lesions affect object learning set retention, and older work dealing with this task has indicated that temporal ablations, at the very least, retard initial acquisition of the set. Inferotemporal monkeys may lose object sets and yet have no deficits in either the learning or short-term retention of single visual habits. Their well-known impairments in visual pattern learning are products of background-cue learning which become most marked in test situations which bias their responses to these cues. Their pattern-learning deficit is an accentuation of a normal characteristic of the monkey, and implies no profound qualitative alteration of the way that they perceive stimuli. Our work that has dealt with frontal preparations indicates that Jacobsen's effect can be produced either by proactive interference or by difficulties in attending. The latter are probably compensable if lesions are produced in very early infancy, but data from experiments with cats has suggested that perseverative interferences are not. Perseverative tendencies can be suppressed with practice in discrimination learning situations, but the tendencies can then be fully reinstated by relatively minor distractions. Frontal-lobe lesions have almost no effects upon object learning set formation, nor do they have important effects upon a monkey's short-term retention of a habit.

Mathematical model of memory trace and forgetfulness.

Abstract: A mathematical model of a memory trace and forgetfulness is proposed here based on an improved version of our previous work (Harth et al, 1970; Anninos et al, 1970) Thus it was shown that the trace of a stimulus pattern presented to a subject decays with time due to the interference theory which assumes that competition among different associations leads to losses of retention Such interference theory has been tested in this model by assuming that the retention of a first learned item followed by the learning of other successive tasks, depends on the inhibitory effect induced by them on the first item

The dissipation and release of proactive interference in a short-term memory task

Abstract: In two experiments, each S received four successive trials in a distractor-type short-term memory task. A rest period was interpolated between Trials 3 and 4. Proactive interference (PI) developed across the first three trials and partially dissipated with rest. However, for all rest intervals tested (up to 5 min), the recovery from PI was increased by a shift in taxonomic class. It was suggested that performance in the release-from-PI paradigm is mediated by a combination of long-term and short-term memory processes.

Short-term memory and the nature of interference from concurrent shadowing

Abstract: Trigrams were presented visually or auditorily and followed by a 12 s retention interval filled with shadowing numbers or letters. Auditory memory letters followed by letter shadowing were recalled less than auditory memory letters followed by number shadowing or visual memory letters followed by either type of shadowing. The latter three conditions did not differ among themselves. An analysis of the recall intrusions suggested that forgetting of auditory memory letters followed by letter shadowing was caused mainly by a confusion between covert rehearsals and shadowing activity, while forgetting in the other three conditions was caused primarily by proactive interference from earlier memory trials.

Acoustic Similarity and Interference in Short-term Recognition Memory: Some Results of a Decision-theory Analysis†:

Abstract: The following three studies of single-probe recognition memory set out to show the effect on the signal-detectability measures of d′ and β (Tanner and Swets, 1954) of variations in the acoustic similarity of interfering material, which may either precede or follow the item to be remembered (proactive or retroactive interference –-PI or RI). The first experiment studies a situation employed by Wickelgren (1966a), who reported that acoustically similar RI substantially reduced d′. It is shown that this effect could have been due to biases in Wickelgren's original designs, and that when a bias-free design is used, the fall in d′ is only of borderline significance. To investigate this problem further, a design was evolved in which two items were presented for memorizing, which varied in acoustic similarity to each other, and (after a distracting task) a probe was presented with one of three questions: Was this the first item of the pair? Was it the second? or, Did it occur in either position? In the first cas...