Buildup and release from proactive interference – Cognitive and neural mechanisms

Abstract

Interference from related memories is generally considered one of the major causes of forgetting in human memory. The most prevalent form of interference may be proactive interference (PI), which refers to the finding that memory of more recently studied information can be impaired by the previous study of other information. PI is a fairly persistent effect, but numerous studies have shown that there can also be release from PI. PI buildup and release have primarily been studied using paired-associate learning, the Brown-Peterson task, or multiple-list learning. The review first introduces the three experimental tasks and, for each task, summarizes critical findings on PI buildup and release, from both behavioral and imaging work. Then, an overview is provided of suggested cognitive mechanisms operating on the encoding and retrieval stages as well as of neural correlates of these mechanisms. The results indicate that, in general, both encoding and retrieval processes contribute to PI buildup and release. Finally, empirical gaps in the current work are emphasized and suggestions for future studies are provided.