The Women’s University in Africa is committed to addressing gender disparity and promoting equal access to university education. As a student of social work, I am currently enrolled in the Introduction to Psychology course (DSW123) with Miss Majoni as my lecturer. Our due date for the submission of this assignment is May 14, 2021.

The topic of our assignment is the question of whether forgetting is due to interference or to natural decay, which was debated extensively in the early twentieth century. To determine the answer, an ideal experiment would involve a learning phase followed by a retention phase where the subject's brain remains biologically active while their mind stays in a state of rest. Jenkins and Dallenbach's classic study in 1924 approximated this ideal experiment by comparing memory for nonsense syllables when subjects slept through the retention interval versus when they remained awake. The interference theory predicted less forgetting during sleep, but decay theory predicted no difference. However, Jenkins and Dallenbach's findings showed that subjects recalled more items when they slept than when they remained awake, leading interference theory to emerge as the dominant theory.

McGeoch's observation in 1932 that the passage of time is not the cause of forgetting supported interference theory and discredited any version of decay theory that attributes a causal role to the passage of time. Instead, a more reasonable decay theory may attribute forgetting to the deterioration of organic traces as a result of natural metabolic processes, but McGeoch remained doubtful. Underwood's 1957 study showed that forgetting was largely due to proactive interference, wherein the number of prior lists the subjects had been asked to learn in the experimental setting affected the amount of forgetting. Underwood argued that retroactive interference is probably a minor cause of forgetting and that the majority of forgetting is due to proactive interference. Subjects are more likely to encounter similar interfering material at some point in their past, rather than in the 24 hours following their participation in the study.

In conclusion, the early twentieth century debate regarding whether forgetting is due to interference or natural decay has resulted in interference theory emerging as the dominant theory. Underwood's study showed that forgetting is mostly attributable to proactive interference rather than retroactive interference.

In an experiment in the field of psychology, it was discovered that prior learning could have a significant impact on forgetting newly learned material. This realization led to the development of a new theory by interference theorists, who based their principles on animal learning. The experiment involved participants learning a list of paired associates, known as the A-B list, and later learning another list with the same stimulus terms but different responses, known as the A-C list. When participants were later tested on their memory of the A-C list, their performance was worse compared to if they had not previously learned the A-B list. This phenomenon is known as proactive interference, which increases as the time interval between A-C learning and memory testing increases.

The Time-Based Resource-Sharing model of working memory suggests that memory traces decay over time due to attention being occupied by other activities. Recent evidence has shown that increased processing time in complex span tasks results in lower recall performance, but there is a confound with the remaining time available to refresh memory traces. However, studies have shown that increasing the processing time still results in poorer recall, confirming that time-related decay is the source of forgetting within working memory.

There are two alternative hypotheses for the forgetting of stored information: the time-related decay and the interference-based hypotheses. The Time-Based Resource-Sharing (TBRS) model proposes that forgetting is time-related, and its efficacy relies on a complex span task paradigm. However, some researchers have noted that this paradigm leads to a confound between processing time and the time available to refresh memory traces.

In summary, the interference theory in psychology explores the impact of prior learning on forgetting newly learned material. The Time-Based Resource-Sharing model suggests that working memory stores decay over time due to attention being occupied by other activities. There are alternative hypotheses for forgetting, and researchers continue to explore the intricate mechanisms of memory.

A platform that enables the creation of psychology experiments through an interactive interface is presented in the Behavioral Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers journal. Additionally, a variety of studies on working memory capacity and attention switching are explored. The author Cowan delves into the topic of working memory capacity in his book, published by Psychology Press in Hove, UK. The European Journal of Cognitive Psychology also features research on attention switching and working memory spans by Lépine, Bernardin, and Barrouillet. Another researcher, Lewandowsky, uses a dynamic network model to explore redintegration and response suppression in serial recall in the International Journal of Psychology. Nairne, on the other hand, proposes a feature model of immediate memory in Memory & Cognition. Neath explores the impact of irrelevant speech on memory in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. Formal models of complexity effects and age differences in working memory are presented by Oberauer and Kliegl in European Journal of Cognitive Psychology. They also develop a formal model of capacity limits in working memory, which is published in the Journal of Memory and Language. Finally, Page and Norris propose a new model of immediate serial recall called the primacy model in Psychological Review, while Posner and Konick examine the role of interference in short-term retention in the Journal of Experimental Psychology. Schweickert uses a multimodal processing tree model to depict degradation and redintegration in immediate recall in Memory & Cognition.