The resolution of proactive interference in a novel visual working memory task: A behavioral and pupillometric study

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience

Background:

• Proactive interference (PI) hinders memory recall when prior information interferes with new learning.
• While studied in verbal memory, PI's impact on visual working memory (VWM) is less understood.
• Pupil diameter, an indicator of cognitive effort, has been linked to PI resolution in verbal tasks.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the behavioral and pupillary correlates of PI resolution in VWM using a naturalistic paradigm.
• To assess the effect of PI on item-location bindings in VWM.
• To determine if PI resolution during memory retrieval is associated with increased cognitive effort.

Main Methods:

• Employed a novel, naturalistic paradigm with mixed PI and no-PI conditions.
• Assessed behavioral performance in VWM for item-location bindings.
• Measured pupil diameter as a neurophysiological index of cognitive effort during memory retrieval.

Main Results:

• Confirmed a detrimental effect of PI on VWM performance, even with spatially distributed stimuli.
• Found no consistent association between PI resolution and increased cognitive effort during memory retrieval.
• Pupil response reliably indicated higher effort during memory encoding for higher-performing individuals.

Conclusions:

• PI significantly impairs VWM, highlighting its impact beyond verbal memory.
• Cognitive effort, indexed by pupil response, is not consistently linked to PI resolution in VWM under conditions minimizing explicit strategies.
• Implicit processing during PI resolution may not elicit a detectable pupillometric response.