Abstract
Ontogenetic changes in the role of proactive interference in augmenting forgetting were tested with 444 rats as subjects. In Experiment 1, Phase 1 (the source of proactive inter ference) included events that were contingent or not contingent on responding in the context of either the Phase 2 training apparatus or a distinctly different apparatus. After learning a spatial discrimination for Phase 2, retention tests were given after intervals of 2 min, 1 day, 7 days, 30 days, or 65 days. The results indicated: (1) infantile amnesia, and (2) proactive inter ference for infant rats but not for adults, in spite of substantial simple forgetting among adults. Experiment 2 extended the test to a go/no-go avoidance task. The results of Experiment 2 gave some indication that infants were more susceptible than were adults to proactive interfer ence over short intervals, but the generality of this relationship was sufficiently ambiguous as to suggest different mechanisms of interference for the discrimination and go/no-go tasks. These data indicate multiple mechanisms of infantile forgetting that may vary with certain characteristics of the task.
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