title: Examining a processing tradeoff explanation of proactive interference.
abstract: Burns (1989) claims that proactive interference effects occur in paired-associate learning because of tradeoffs in relational and response-specific processing. Consistent with this claim, Burns demonstrated that free recall of critical-list responses is better in the interference condition than in the control condition. Burns's processing tradeoff explanation predicts that the occurrence of this reverse-interference effect should be positively correlated with the occurrence of traditional interference effects. We present several experiments whose results are inconsistent with this prediction. We hypothesize that the reverse-interference effect is a list-length effect. The results of a final experiment, contrasting the predictions of the list-length and processing tradeoff explanations, support the list-length explanation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 27599-3270.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Hirshman
authors.forename: D J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Burns
authors.forename: T M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Kuo
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D010153:Paired-Associate Learning; D011334:Proactive Inhibition