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When increasing distraction helps learning: Distractor number and content interact in their effects on memory.
Kate Nussenbaum1, Dima Amso2, Julie Markant3
1Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford, UK, OX1 3PH. kate.nussenbaum@psy.ox.ac.uk.
Attention, Perception & Psychophysics
|August 12, 2017
Summary
Adding more distractors to visual search tasks can improve memory for target items, especially when distractors conflict with the target. This suggests distractors can reduce interference during learning.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Visual Perception
- Memory Research
Background:
- Previous research indicates more distractors reduce interference during target processing.
- The impact of reduced interference on learning target information remains unclear.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how distraction amount and content affect visual search and memory for targets.
- To understand the interaction between distractor quantity and conceptual conflict in learning.
Main Methods:
- Two experiments were conducted manipulating the number and category information of distractors in a visual search task.
- Participants' visual search performance and subsequent memory for target items were assessed.
Main Results:
- Increasing distractors made target detection more effortful but did not impair memory.
- When distractors conflicted with target category, increasing distractors from one to three improved learning and memory.
Conclusions:
- Distractor quantity and content interact to influence target selection and memory.
- Higher numbers of distractors may mitigate interference from conflicting conceptual information during memory encoding.
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