Inhibitory control in memory: evidence for negative priming in free recall

Marsh, J. E., Beaman, C. P. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5124-242X, Hughes, R. W. and Jones, D. M. (2012) Inhibitory control in memory: evidence for negative priming in free recall. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognitio, 38 (5). pp. 1377-1388. ISSN 1939-1285 doi: 10.1037/a0027849

Abstract/Summary

Cognitive control mechanisms—such as inhibition—decrease the likelihood that goal-directed activity is ceded to irrelevant events. Here, we use the action of auditory distraction to show how retrieval from episodic long-term memory is affected by competitor inhibition. Typically, a sequence of to-be-ignored spoken distracters drawn from the same semantic category as a list of visually-presented to-be-recalled items impairs free recall performance. In line with competitor inhibition theory (Anderson, 2003), free recall was worse for items on a probe trial if they were a repeat of distracter items presented during the previous, prime, trial (Experiment 1). This effect was only produced when the distracters were dominant members of the same category as the to-be-recalled items on the prime. For prime trials in which distracters were low-dominant members of the to-be-remembered item category or were unrelated to that category—and hence not strong competitors for retrieval—positive priming was found (Experiments 2 & 3). These results are discussed in terms of inhibitory approaches to negative priming and memory retrieval.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/27180
Identification Number/DOI	10.1037/a0027849
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Department of Psychology Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Language and Cognition
Publisher	American Psychological Association
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