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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 19, 2026

A Cognitive Paradigm to Investigate Interference in Working Memory by Distractions and Interruptions
10:38

A Cognitive Paradigm to Investigate Interference in Working Memory by Distractions and Interruptions

Published on: July 16, 2015

Interference from previous distraction disrupts older adults' memory.

Renée K Biss1, Karen L Campbell, Lynn Hasher

  • 1Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. renee.biss@utoronto.ca

The Journals of Gerontology. Series B, Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences
|August 30, 2012
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Even irrelevant past information can impair older adults' memory. Distraction significantly reduced recall in older adults, but not younger adults, suggesting interference with new learning.

Keywords:
AgingAssociative memoryAttentionCued recallInhibitionInterference.

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive psychology
  • Neuroscience of aging

Background:

  • Prior relevant information can negatively impact memory recall in older adults.
  • The effect of prior irrelevant information (distraction) on older adults' memory is less understood.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate whether prior irrelevant information interferes with older adults' memory for new information.
  • To compare the effects of distraction on memory in younger and older adults.

Main Methods:

  • Participants (younger and older adults) completed a 1-back task with distracting words.
  • Memory for new picture-word associations was tested after a delay.
  • Two conditions were used: high interference (reused pictures) and low interference (new pictures).

Main Results:

  • Older adults showed significantly lower memory performance in the high-interference condition compared to the low-interference condition.
  • Younger adults' memory performance was unaffected by the level of interference.
  • This highlights a specific vulnerability in older adults' memory processing.

Conclusions:

  • Prior irrelevant information can disrupt memory formation and recall in older adults.
  • Distraction poses a significant challenge to older adults' ability to form new associations.
  • These findings have implications for understanding memory decline in aging.