Searching for interference effects in learning new face–name associations

Abstract

In three experiments we attempted to increase interference using experimental manipulations in a face–name learning paradigm. All experiments included young and older adult participants because ageing is associated with increases in both susceptibility to interference and difficulty in learning face–name associations. None of the experiments produced interference for either age group: The inclusion of confusable (i.e., ambiguous) names and occupations, having to learn an additional piece of information in association with each face, and requiring participants to guess when uncertain all failed to negatively impact name learning. Interference does not appear to be the critical mechanism underlying the difficulty of learning proper names, and it cannot account for older adults' disproportionate decline in name-learning ability.

Keywords:

• Proper names
• Memory
• Interference
• Ageing

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Aging (R15 AG024067) to Lori E. James. Experiment 1 served in partial fulfilment of Sarah Tauber's requirements for the MA degree in Experimental Psychology from the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, and Experiment 2 served in partial fulfilment of Ethan McMahan's requirements for the Honors Program in Psychology at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. Portions of this research were presented at the 2007 meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Long Beach, CA, and at the 2011 meeting of the Rocky Mountain Psychological Association, Salt Lake City, UT.

Sarah K. Tauber is now at Kent State University, Kent, OH; Ethan A. McMahan is now at Western Oregon University, Monmouth, OR; and Kethera A. Fogler is now at James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA.