Transcript Motor Interference on Memory Tasks

Motor Interference on Memory
Tasks
Brandy Johnson
Overview
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Interference
Competing Processes
Nouns and Verbs
Current Study
Interference
• Memories are verbal representations of
concepts
• Working Memory and Interference
Baddeley’s Working
Memory Model
Interference
• What is interference?
• The Brown-Peterson Paradigm
– Rapid forgetting of small amounts of
information, provided that a participant is
briefly distracted (Peterson & Peterson, 1959)
• Competing processes
– Bjork,1989
Motor Interference?
• Cognitivism: major philosophical background for
psychology
– No Motor Interference
• Most theories of cognition suggest that motor activity is a
separate cognitive process from memory
• Embodied Cognition
– Motor Interference
• Cognition is for the purpose of bodily action in the
environment. Therefore, the processes that guide perception
and action are also used to construct concepts.
Nouns and Verbs
• Warrington and McCarthy, 1987
– Verb meanings – Motor Modality
– Noun meanings – Visual Modality.
• Pulvermuller, Lutzenberger, and Preissl, 1999
– Provide information about specific cognitive neuronal
processes
– Found cortical differences between nouns and verbs
Experimental Design
Item Type
Concurrent Task
Nouns
None
Digit
Monitoring
Finger
Tapping
Verbs
• Within Groups
• 10 nouns and 10
verbs
• Free Recall
• DV: proportion of
correct memory
recall
Methods
• Example of Stimuli
Nouns
Verbs
Pen
Paper
Snap
Stretch
Bell
Pencil
Push
Strike
Candy
Tissue
Lift
Kick
Yarn
Article
Swing
Touch
Methods
• Control
– Present Word List
– Free Recall
• Central Executive Task
– Present Word List
– Digit Monitoring
– Free Recall
• Motor Task
– Present Word List
– Finger Tap
– Free Recall
Hypothesis
• We expect interference on the central
executive task.
• We predict that verbs should have higher
interference in the finger tap (motor)
condition.
• There will be no difference between nouns
and verbs in the other two conditions
(control and monitoring).
Results
Proportion Correct
0.50
0.40
0.30
0.42
0.20
0.40
0.40
0.25
0.10
0.23
0.00
None
Digit Monitor
Concurrent Task
0.29
Finger Tap
Conclusion
• Processing verbs involves motoric
processing.
• Embodied Cognition
– Consistent with other action based
interference effects
Conclusion
• Glenberg and Kaschak, 2002
– Action Sentence Compatibility Effect (ACE)
• Sensible/ Nonsense Sentence
• IV: Implied direction of sensible sentences
– Away or Toward
• IV: Response button “near” or “far”
• DV: Latency for “yes” responses
– Interaction between type of sentence and
response button position
Thanks!
Questions, Comments, Suggestions