Slowing forgetting in visual working memory: Proactive facilitation in the repeated-unique paradigm

Proactive interference occurs when previously established memories disrupt the retention of newer memories, and some evidence from the repeated-unique paradigm suggests that proactive interference reduces the capacity of visual working memory. The present project assessed whether the other major limitation of visual working memory-its brief lifetime-may also be influenced by proactive interference. In six experiments, participants encoded sets of targets and then determined whether a single probe matched any of those targets. The retention interval (Experiments 1, 2, and 4-6) and intertrial interval (Experiments 3 and 4) were varied, as was target repetition. Lower performance was expected when targets were extensively repeated across trials, rather than when they were unique, due to proactive interference. This was hypothesized to be especially likely after longer retention intervals and shorter intertrial intervals, yet this was not supported as temporal forgetting was typically reduced when targets were repeated rather than unique. The only exception to this was when arrangements in the memory test were inconsistent in the two conditions. Overall, stimulus repetition generally offers protection against time-dependent forgetting, challenging the notion that proactive interference is responsible for the loss of working memory over time. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).