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The effect of divided attention on memory for items and their context
1Psychology Department, Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care, Toronto, Ontario. atroyer@baycrest.org
Summary
Memory for temporal order, unlike item memory, demands significant attentional resources. Dividing attention during both encoding and retrieval particularly impairs temporal order memory, highlighting its resource-intensive nature.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Human Memory
Background:
- Memory for items is generally less demanding than memory for context.
- Attentional resources play a crucial role in memory formation and retrieval.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the differential attentional demands of item versus context memory.
- To examine the impact of divided attention on encoding and retrieval of item, intrinsic context, and extrinsic context memory.
Main Methods:
- Participants learned word lists presented on colored cards.
- Divided attention was manipulated at encoding, retrieval, or both stages.
- Memory performance for items, card color (intrinsic context), and word order (extrinsic context) was assessed.
Main Results:
- Divided attention at encoding or retrieval alone equally reduced performance across all memory types.
- Divided attention at both encoding and retrieval impaired only temporal order memory.
- Item memory and intrinsic context memory were less affected by dual-stage divided attention.
Conclusions:
- Memory for temporal order requires significantly more attentional resources and strategic processing than item memory.
- The findings underscore the distinct cognitive mechanisms underlying different types of memory.
- Attentional limitations disproportionately impact complex memory tasks like recalling temporal sequences.