Role Of Interference Effects Research Articles

Retrieval interference in sentence comprehension

The role of interference effects in sentence processing has recently begun to receive attention, however whether these effects arise during encoding or retrieval remains unclear. This paper draws on basic memory research to help distinguish these explanations and reports data from an experiment that manipulates the possibility for retrieval interference while holding encoding conditions constant. We found clear support for the principle of cue-overload, wherein cues available at retrieval cannot uniquely distinguish among competitors, thus giving rise to interference effects. We discuss the data in relation to a cue-based parsing framework ( Van Dyke & Lewis, 2003) and other interference effects observed in sentence processing (e.g., Gordon, Hendrick, & Johnson, 2001, 2004). We conclude from the available data that the memory system that subserves language comprehension operates according to similar principles as memory in other domains.

Excitation of surface plasmons on metals by low-energy electrons: The role of interference effects.

We present quantitative theoretical studies of the wave-vector dependence of the cross section for excitation of surface plasmons by low-energy electrons incident on the Ag(100) surface. The analysis assumes the dipole mechanism provides the dominant coupling between the electron and the surface plasmon. The theory provides a very good account of the systematic features reported recently by Rocca and Valbusa. As emphasized in earlier theoretical discussions, under conditions used in the experiments, the interference between two excitation channels--- loss then reflection'' and reflection then loss''---enters importantly in the description of the excitation process. In addition, it is essential to include the influence of the image potential on both the amplitude and phase on the scattering amplitude for elastic, specular reflection from the surface.

The Role of Interference Effects in the Amplification of Light by Stimulated Emission

The mechanisms behind the amplification of light by stimulated emission are investigated using a semiclassical approach. The theory is developed in the plane wave mode picture so as to follow closely the correspondence with the usual quantized field treatment. It is shown that the interference between stimulating and stimulated fields is an essential process for producing the well-known first-order effects, and that interference between stimulated emission fields from different atoms in the sample determines the spatial distribution of the amplification when this is measured locally using a light detector without mode discrimination.