A03

• In support, Danaher et al (2008) tested the recognition and recall of advertising messages.


  • He found when ppts had been exposed to competing brands within a week, recall was reduced.
  • In order to strengthen the memory traces, he recommended multiple exposures to a campaign in one day rather than spread them over a week to.
  • This would reduce interference from competing brands.
• However there is evidence that some people are less affected by proactive interference than others.

  • Kane and Eagle (2000) demonstrated that individuals with a greater working memory span were less susceptible to proactive interference. Ppts had to learn 3 lists of words.
• Those participants with low working memory spans showed

  • greater proactive interference when recalling the second and third list than did participants with higher spans.
• In support, McGeoch and McDonald (1931) experimented the effects of similarity of materials. 


  • They ppts learned List A had a 10 minute resting interval and then learned List B
  • There was higher recall (37%) when list A was adjectives and list B was numbers.
  • There was lower recall (12%) when list A was adjectives and list B was synonyms of those adjectives

  This shows the more similar the stimuli the greater the interference.