The effect of semantic similarity on retroactive interference in long- and short-term memory

doi:10.1016/S0022-5371(66)80054-3

Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior

Volume 5, Issue 5, October 1966, Pages 417-420

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-5371(66)80054-3 Get rights and content

Experiment I showed RI effects in long-term memory for pairs of adjectives in the classical RI paradigm (Learn A′-B, Learn A-C, Restest A-B, where A and A′ are adjectives with similar meanings). Experiment II tried to show comparable RI effects in short-term memory. Sequences of three pairs were presented once and tested immediately. As in Exp. I, pairs of adjectives were used, with experimental trials containing pairs with semantically similar stimuli and control trials comprising pairs with dissimilar stimuli. There was no significant differnce between recall of RI items and their controls. Experiment III extended this study to lists of 2, 4 and 6 pairs. Again there was no reliable evidence for RI effects of the type shown in long-term memory.

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In TODAM, forgetting is not assumed to be due to decay of information within memory, but instead due to interference from other items stored (see Mewhort, et al., 2018 for a recent discussion of this issue). From this perspective, the effect of number of intervening sentences on priming is similar to retroactive interference in episodic memory performance (e.g., Baddeley & Dale, 1966), which is the impact of newly presented information on the remembering of previously presented information. By comparing levels of priming when there are no other sentences in memory to priming levels as other sentences are added into the memory, it signals the impact of retroactive interference on syntactic priming in the model.
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These results simply reflect the difficulty in acquisition of correct button press responses in the zero-back sequence method (i.e., at the early learning phase). A possible explanation for this is retroactive interference (e.g., Baddeley & Dale, 1966; Zentall, 1973). For example, even if participants in the zero-back sequence method succeeded in the first triad and made an error in the second triad, they could not restart from the beginning; thus, time could increase until the next performance of the first triad.
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The effect of semantic similarity on retroactive interference in long- and short-term memory

J. verb. Learn. verb. Behav.

J. verb. Learn. verb. Behav.

J. verb. Learn. verb. Behav.

Semantic and acoustic similarity in short-term memory

Nature

Perception and communication