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What Is Proactive Interference

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Introduction
By the age of seven, reading is an activity many children are well accustomed to. With the amount of time most individuals have been reading, this task is relatively easy. Yet, there are still instances in which we are reading a novel, a magazine, or even a simple text message, and we simply cannot manage to remember what we read. This is event is due to interference. Interference theory states that there are two forms of interference that can hinder our ability to properly encode information into our memory (Bergstrom 1892), proactive interference and retroactive interference. When reading, however, visual interference can play a large part in disrupting out learning process.
In the experiment commonly known for the development …show more content…

A controlled process is a task which is new or unique to the person. It is serial, takes heavy demands on attention, requires conscious efforts to direct attention towards the task and is slow. Whereas an automatic process is a task which has already been learned. It can be parallel, makes no demands on attention, does not need conscious direction of attention towards the task and is fast. This implies that when we are presented with a word, the action of stating its color is a relatively new task compared to the already learnt behavior to read just words. Therefore, reading is seen as the automatic process which interferes with the slower controlled process of stating the color. With the alteration of the original Stroop Effect experiment, the automaticity model is discredited due to the fact that instead of stating the word the participant points at the observed color instead. This nonverbal response, pointing at the color, is not believed to be an automatic process, thus the automaticity model is questioned when researchers note an interference in the speed of processing in incongruently colored

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