Abstract:Two experiments examined how individual differences in working-memory capacity (WM) relate -to proactive interference (PI) susceptibility. We tested high and low WM-span participants in a PI-buildup task under singletask or dual-task ("load") conditions. In Experiment 1, a finger-tapping task was imposed during encoding anti retrieval of each list; in Experiment 2, tapping was required during encoding or retrieval. In both experiments, low spans showed greater PI than did high spans under no load, but groups showed equivalent PI under divided attention. Load increased PI only for high spans, suggesting they use attention at encoding and retrieval to combat N. In Experiment 2, only low spans showed a dual-task cost on List 1 memory, before PI built up. Results indicate a role for attentional processing, perhaps inhibitory in nature, at encoding and retrieval, and are discussed with respect to theories of WM and prefrontal cortex function.
Article:The central executive component of working memory is now a focus of theoretical and empirical interest. Although its functions are still under-specified, they are most often characterized as "attentional"