Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 21, 2026

Using Rapid Serial Visual Presentation to Measure Set-Specific Capture, a Consequence of Distraction While Multitasking
Published on: August 29, 2018
Lingering effects of inattention on the recognition of novel forms
1Department of Applied Psychology, Arizona State University at the Polytechnic Campus, Mesa, AZ 85212, USA. vaughn.becker@asu.edu
Abstract:
Two experiments are reported in which participants were instructed to attend to one of two overlapping figures and report how distinctive it was (Experiment 1), or how angular it was or what it resembled (Experiment 2). Tests of recognition memory indicated that recognition of the unattended figures was below chance, consistent with the conclusion that an implicit memory of the unattended figures and an "action tag" to not respond to the figures combine at recognition to suppress positive identification. Furthermore, participants that scored high on an index of working memory ability showed worse memory for the unattended shapes, suggesting that the ability to control attention not only enhances memory for attended items, but also leads to greater suppression of unattended distractors.
Related Concept Videos
Interference and Decay
Interference occurs when competing memories hinder the retrieval of particular information. It can be classified into two types: proactive and retroactive interference. Proactive...
Forgetting
Encoding...
High-Level and Low-Level Awareness
Prosopagnosia
First Impression
Schemas

