Inducing proactive interference by context reinstatement

Abstract: Proactive interference occurs when previously learned information interfere with current processing. The research presented here examined how old memories can compete with new information during recall by reinstating the context from which the material was learned. Participants were exposed to two around the world trips on a television screen and were tested on memory using the Brown-Peterson task. A trip consisted of nine locations (e.g. Japan) and the memory task was to memorize three triads of words from the same semantic category at each location. After the first six destinations a fourth triad of words from that same word category was presented at the same destination as before, or at a new destination. Previously learned words were then expected to interfere with the words currently being memorized if the participant visited the same locations. Thirty-three subjects (23 female, 10 male) voluntarily participated in the experiment (M = 23,93 years, range = 20 – 29 years). The results showed a declined memory performance from trial one to three. There was also a release from proactive interference in trial four. However, there was no significant difference between memory performance in trial four whether the old context was reinstated or not.