Attention to and memory reactivation of long-term memories when anticipating upcoming interference

Official URL: https://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b3199887

Although the effects of interference on working memory and long-term memory retrieval are well-studied, the effects of anticipating interference on working memory maintenance of long-term memories are yet to be explored. In this thesis, I aimed to explore whether anticipating upcoming interference would modulate the extent to which long-term memories are reactivated in working memory. In Chapter 2, participants were presented with a previously studied item, and after an interval, they reported the item they were presented with. Half of the blocks, the retention period contained a perceptual interference screen which they were instructed to ignore. In Chapter 3, we added a baseline condition that probed the participants with novel items. We manipulated the memory load by implementing a condition in which participants were presented with three items. Lastly, we replaced the perceptual interference with an interference task to increase the cost of interference. Overall, the findings from these chapters suggest that there is no WM reactivation difference when anticipating interference or not. Moreover, when the interference can be ignored (i.e., perceptual interference), participants stop attending to the memory item location, probably to inhibit future distractor encoding. When interference cannot be ignored (i.e., interference task), participants attended the memory items later in the retention interval.