Experiment # 9

Proactive Inhibition
 Problem Statement

To study the effect of proactive inhibition on subjects ability to recall.

Introduction

 Proactive inhibition or proactive interference is an aspect of interference in learning and

is a concept that describes the increased difficulty of learning or remembering a set of
words after that set had been learned in a previous, different context. It applies to free
recall and associative or list learning procedures of assessing memory.

 Underwood (1957) provided early evidence that things you've learned before encoding a
target item can worsen recall of that target item. In a meta-analysis of multiple
experiments, he showed that the more lists one had already learned, the more trouble one
had in recalling the most recent one. This is proactive interference, where the prior
existence of old memories makes it harder to recall newer memories.

 Proactive interference can be potently demonstrated with the Brown-Peterson

paradigm (Brown, 1958; Peterson & Peterson, 1958). A single Brown-Peterson trial
consists of a study list, a retention interval and then a recall period. The study list might
consist of a handful of related items (such as a handful of animals or occupations),
presented individually every few seconds. For the duration of a short retention interval,
subjects are then asked to perform an engaging distractor task such as counting
backwards in sevens (to minimize rehearsal). Finally, subjects are asked to recall the
items from this study list.

 Usually, subjects' back side recollection is nearly perfect for the first trial, but perform
increasingly poorly on subsequent trials that use study lists drawn from the same
category. This is the proactive interference effect described earlier. In other words, even
though the lists from previous trials are now irrelevant, the fact that they were studied at
all is somehow making it harder for subjects to recall the most recent list

Literature Review
  2 to 2.5 pages, 4 to 5 researches, researches (articles)  summarize in form of (author
name + year  citation) objective (why), methodology (how), participants (who), results
(what).
 Citation e.g. Jannat (2025) ---- when you start with the author’s name.
(Jannat, 2025) ----- when you start with the text and cite at the last.
(Haider & Usman, 2025) ---- when you have two authors.
Esha, fizza, malaika ---- when you have three or more than three authors
Esha et al., 2025 -----

Methodology

Hypothesis

Retrieval of newly learned material is hindered due to previously learned material.

Independent Variable

The list of non-syllables (List A & B)

Dependent Variable

Subject recall

Sample/subject

This experiment involved a sample of two people, one of them served as the
experimenter and other served as subject.  Edit it accordingly

Instruments/Tools

Two lists of non-syllables, memory drum, paper, pencil, stop watch

Procedure

The trail consist of two groups, on is experimental group and other one is the control
group. There were proactive inhibition sheet were used in the experiment, on the sheets different
words lists were present known as nonsense words. The experiment consist two list of nonsense
lists of words known as the list A and list B. The experimental group had the different learn the
both words list and had to recall the words, there were total seven trail for each words list. First
the researcher call the words list A in front of the participant of the experimental group and the
participant have to recall the words as he/ she can. There were total seven trails. In the next the
researcher will again call the words list B of nonsense and asked participant had to recall them.
After this, the researcher then moved toward the control group and call the list of nonsense
words list B and asked the participant to recall them. And this was also consist of seven trails.
This was the end of round 1. In the Round 2, the researcher again asked the experimental group
participant to recall the meaningful words, and same as to the control group. In the final the
researcher added the results and marked the errors and responses of both group.

Results

Quantitative Analysis

Table 1

Observation Table of Level 1 (Experimental Group Non-Sense Words List A)

Experimental Group Control Group

Trial
Time (sec) Errors Time (sec) Errors

1 55sec 7

2 44sec 5

3 36sec 4 Rest

4 37sec 1

5 30sec 0

6 12sec 0

7 10sec 3
Table 1 show that the result for the experimental group Non-sense words list A the experimental
group took 55 sec in first trial and the 5 errors while in 7th trial the participant took 10 sec
whereas control group was at rest.

Table 2

Observation Table level 2 (Experimental & Control Group Non-Sense Syllables List B)

Experimental Group Control Group

Trial
Time (sec) Errors Time (sec) Errors

1 55 4 35 3

2 35 3 27 3

3 38 3 20 0

4 28 2 17 0

5 22 0 15 0

6 30 2 11 2

7 18 2 10 1

Table 2 Experimental and control group non-sense syllables list B show that result in
Experimental group participant took 55 sec and have 4 errors while the 7 trail participant took
only 18 sec with 2 errors. Whereas in control group participant took 35 sec in first Trial with 3
errors while in 7th trial the participant took lesser time and lesser errors as compared to
Experimental Group
Table 3

Observation Table level 3 (Experimental & Control Group Recall)

Trial Experimental Group Control Group

Time (sec) Errors Time (sec) Errors

1 48 2 37 1

Table1 level 3 Experimental and control group recall the words. The Experimental group took 48
seconds with 2 errors while the control group took 37 seconds and errors only on 1.

Qualitative Analysis

Discussion

 Discuss hypothesis (accept or reject), match or contrast literature researches results and
your findings (support or against).

References