Interference
1. Jane and Brenda are both in psychology and sociology and both have a sociology exam this afternoon. This morning,
Jane first studies her psychology notes then studies her sociology notes. Then she takes her sociology exam in the
afternoon. In the morning, Brenda only studies her sociology notes and then takes the sociology exam that afternoon.
a. Who should have a harder time remembering the sociology information? Why?
Jane, because she’ll experience proactive interference from the psychology notes she studied first. Brenda
only studied sociology, so there’s nothing to interfere.
2. Bob and Tyler both took 3 years of Spanish in high school. Neither has studied Spanish for 2 years. Now, Tyler is
taking French in college but Bob is not taking any foreign language.
a. If Bob and Tyler now try to remember their high school Spanish, who will have a harder time remembering
it? Why?
Tyler, because he’ll be experiencing retroactive interference from the French he is most recently studying.
Bob has no other language to interfere. (Both of them will probably have forgotten some Spanish because of
decay, but Tyler will have an even harder time remembering because he has interference as well as decay
going on)
3. For their anatomy class, Carol and Elise have both memorized the names of all the cranial nerves (assume that they’ve
both memorized them equally well). Now, Carol studies her calculus formulas while Elise watches American Idol for
the same amount of time.
a. Who will now have a harder time remembering the names of the cranial nerves? Why?
Neither one should have a harder time than the other. Calculus formulas are very different from the names of
nerves, so calculus should not interfere with Carol’s remembering the nerves’ names. The content and format
of American Idol is also very different from the names of the cranial nerves, so it shouldn’t interfere with
Elise.
4. Derrick usually parks his car in the student parking lot on Olive St. across from the Public Safety building, but today
that lot is full so he has to park in the student lot on Harrison Ave. behind the Biology building. At the end of the day,
when he walks to his car he goes to the Olive St. lot before he realizes that he parked his car on Harrison.
a. What caused Derrick to go to the wrong lot today?
Proactive interference from the usual (previous) parking location. Memory for the new location (most recent
parking place) is being blocked by memories of the previous, usual (old) parking location.
5. Paulo and Deidre are both financial advisors, and each has a long list of client appointments today in which they’ll be
talking with their clients about investment options. Paulo has appointments at 9:30 a.m., 10:00 a.m., 12:30 p.m., 2:15
p.m., 2:30 p.m. 3:00 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. Deidre has appointments at 8:15 a.m., 8:45 a.m., 9:30 a.m., 11:00 a.m., 1:00
p.m., 1:30 p.m. 2:15 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. In between the appointments they have other meetings and assigned work, so
neither of them is able to sit down and write up summaries of the day’s client meetings until about 4:30 that afternoon.
a. As he’s writing his summaries, Paolo discovers that he can’t remember much of what he and his 3:00 and
3:30 clients talked about. Why not?
Primarily due to proactive interference from the earlier, similar meetings interfering with memory for his
most recent meetings (the 3:00 meeting memory might also get a little retroactive interference from the more
recent 3:30 meeting).
b. As she’s writing her summaries, Deidre discovers that she can’t remember much of what she discussed with
her 8:15 and 8:45 clients. Why not?
Primarily due to retroactive interference from the later, similar meetings interfering with memory for her
earlier meetings (the 8:45 meeting memory might also get a little proactive interference from the earlier 8:15
meeting).
