Short Term Memory: Interference

You hear a phone number on the radio as you are driving home from work and begin repeating it over and over so you can call when you get home and get your carpets cleaned for 20% off. However, as you are saying the numbers out loud, your friend, in an endeavor to keep your carpets dirty, starts spouting out random numbers. Soon, the number is gone, completely out of your head. This is the phenomenon known as interference. Just like the name implies, interference is an event that prevents you from remembering specific things. But there are different types of interference, and they vary in their destructive effect. To demonstrate this, try the following experiments. When you are finished, click the done button.

Experiment 1. Play the sound file below. You will hear a list of seven numbers. When the file is done, press the start button to start the timer. When it reaches 0, write as numbers as you can remember. When you are finished, click the done button to continue.



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