Wakeful rest alleviates interference-based forgetting

Abstract

Retroactive interference (RI)—the disruptive influence of events occurring after the formation of a new memory—is one of the primary causes of forgetting. Placing individuals within an environment that postpones interference should, therefore, greatly reduce the likelihood of information being lost from memory. For example, a short period of wakeful rest should diminish interference-based forgetting. To test this hypothesis, participants took part in a foreign language learning activity and were shown English translations of 20 Icelandic words for immediate recall. Half of the participants were then given an 8-min rest before completing a similar or dissimilar interfering distractor task. The other half did not receive a rest until after the distractor task, at which point interference had already taken place. All participants were then asked to translate the Icelandic words for a second time. Results revealed that retention was significantly worse at the second recall test, but being allowed a brief rest before completing the distractor task helped reduce the amount of forgetting. Taking a short, passive break can shield new memories from RI and alleviate forgetting.

Keywords:

• Forgetting
• Interference
• Memory
• Rest

This work was supported by an Early Researcher Award Scheme (ERAS) Grant from the University of Wolverhampton. I would like to thank Dr Marie Poirier and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. I am also grateful to Louise Davies, Ian Jukes and Phil Oates for their technical support, Julie Jebsen for her help in creating the Norwegian–English word pairs and coding the data and Hannah Anderson for her assistance in creating the Icelandic–English word pairs. The face images used in this experiment were provided courtesy of Michael J. Tarr, Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, Carnegie Mellon University, http://www.tarrlab.org/.

This work was supported by an Early Researcher Award Scheme (ERAS) Grant from the University of Wolverhampton. I would like to thank Dr Marie Poirier and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. I am also grateful to Louise Davies, Ian Jukes and Phil Oates for their technical support, Julie Jebsen for her help in creating the Norwegian–English word pairs and coding the data and Hannah Anderson for her assistance in creating the Icelandic–English word pairs. The face images used in this experiment were provided courtesy of Michael J. Tarr, Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, Carnegie Mellon University, http://www.tarrlab.org/.

Notes

¹ Group sizes were as follows: Delayed rest, similar distractor task, N = 21; delayed rest, dissimilar distractor task, N = 18, immediate rest, similar distractor task, N = 21, immediate rest, dissimilar distractor task, N = 24. Despite some differences in the sample sizes within the conditions, a nonparametric equivalent of Levene's test suggested that the homogeneity of variance assumption had been met (Nordstokke & Zumbo, 2010).