Conquer Your Mind: Understanding Interference in Learning 

By Haley Cutting

Introduction 

Trying to learn new information while having to remember old information is hard, especially the thought of coming in as a first-year college student. The thought of trying to learn multiple classes and courses at once at a high level can be stressful, especially coming out of high school. The class schedule in college is confusing within itself. Trying to figure out how you will study for your psychology of learning exam on Monday and your cognitive psychology exam, also on Monday. When you go in to take your cognitive psychology exam, you completely forget everything you studied from earlier chapters, but can only remember everything from recent chapters. This is what is called retroactive interference (RI). This process occurs when learning a new task that then impairs the previously learned task (1). As you continue throughout the exam, you remember stuff from chapters from the start of the year. As you start remembering those earlier chapters, you cannot seem to remember anything from the chapters you just learned! This is what is called proactive interference (PI). This process occurs when the old task you learned impairs the ability to learn or remember the new task (1). There are some ways to stop these interferences from occurring for you little newcomers. To stop these from happening you need to fully understand which interference is which and what they fully mean. Here is a little acronym trick for you, Proactive = Old, Retroactive = New (“P.O.R.N”).  

What is Interference?  

So, what is interference? Interference is the process of certain information that gets disrupted, and it inhibits the ability to recall and or remember other information. There are two forms of interference, retroactive interference (RI) and proactive interference (PI). Do you remember your first week of high school and how your teacher would call you by the wrong name (2)? This is an example of PI. This is because your teacher was used to seeing the same faces for a whole year. Going back to high school again, when you would go into an old teacher’s room during lunch and he or she cannot remember your name (2)? This again is a prime example of RI. This is because since it is a new semester, he or she has learned new names and faces. Therefore, that teacher may not remember your name. Now that you understand the differences between the two forms of interference, it is now time to learn about ways to reduce them! 

Retroactive and Proactive Interference 

Have you ever been trying to study for an upcoming exam, and you are trying to learn all the different topics at once. Then when you get your exam, you start blanking on different parts? There has been research done that help reduce RI and PI from creeping up on you during exams. To go more in depth into reducing RI and PI, RI is the method of encoding a list of words to make it visually easier to understand what you are learning (3). One way to reduce RI is to make two lists similar for studying. For example, when studying try to make lists that contain similar topics but not the exact same. This is because if you make two lists that are the exact same interference will then inhibit the recalling of the information you are trying to learn. One way to reduce PI is to simply get sleep (3). For example, when you are relearning old information, it is important to get a good sleep that night. This is because if you do not get sleep that night, this will then cause interference to impact your ability to recall the information you learned that night.  

How About Our Memory? 

You are probably wondering how interference works within memory. Well, there was a study that has been done by two psychologists, Vandenberg and Kuse. Their study was to determine the relationship between spatial ability and spatial text processing in working memory. The study consisted of two experiments where the participants listened to spatial texts and non-spatial texts. While participants were listening, they had to also participate in a verbal task. The first test that participants participated in was looking at an object and turning it to visualize it in many ways. There was also a reading comprehension test they participated in. The results of this study showed that individuals with a high Holographic Memory Resolution (HMR) performed better than those with low HMR. The results suggested that individuals with low HMR need more spatial resources than those with high HMR, because of their high working memory. (5) You are probably wondering what working memory is? Well, working memory is the ability to control small amounts of information accessible in your memory. (6)  

Conclusion 

Now that you know what interference is and the methods, and how it works in our memories. You can now use these methods of reducing interference in your studies to get a head start on your GPA.  

References

  1. Abel, Magdalena, and Karl-Heinz T. Bäuml. “Sleep Can Reduce Proactive Interference.” Memory, vol. 22, no. 4, 5 Apr. 2013, pp. 332–339, www.psychologie.uni-regensburg.de/Baeuml/papers_open/AB14_Memory.pdf, https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2013.785570. Accessed 10 Dec. 2019. 
  1. Brawn, Timothy P., et al. “Differential Development of Retroactive and Proactive Interference during Post-Learning Wakefulness.” Learning & Memory, vol. 25, no. 7, 15 June 2018, pp. 325–329, https://doi.org/10.1101/lm.046573.117. Accessed 23 May 2020. 
  1. Cowan, Nelson. “Working Memory Underpins Cognitive Development, Learning, and Education.” Educational Psychology Review, vol. 26, no. 2, 3 Dec. 2013, pp. 197–223, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4207727/, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-013-9246-y
  1. Cumming, John McClure, and Michael A. De Miranda. “Reducing Retroactive Interference through the Use of Different Encoding Techniques: An Exploration of Pre-Test/Post-Test Analyses.” International Journal of Higher Education, vol. 1, no. 1, 11 May 2012, https://doi.org/10.5430/ijhe.v1n1p22
  1. Darby, Kevin P., and Vladimir M. Sloutsky. “The Cost of Learning: Interference Effects in Memory Development.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, vol. 144, no. 2, Apr. 2015, pp. 410–431, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4388774/, https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000051
  1. Meneghetti, Chiara , et al. “Individual Differences in Spatial Text Processing: High Spatial Ability Can Compensate for Spatial Working Memory Interference.” Search.ebscohost.com, Dec. 2009, web.p.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=1&sid=9150452f-78ae-44e8-9c49-43ceb99602d8%40redis&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPXNoaWImc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZl#AN=EJ860376&db=eric. Accessed 27 Apr. 2024.