Séminaire interne : Krzysztof PIATKOWSKI

Although processing distraction typically harms memory, with working memory (WM) being particularly vulnerable to the detrimental effects of distraction, under specific circumstances distraction can benefit both short-term and long-term memory. For example, such benefits can be observed when the processed distractors are semantically similar to the to-be-remembered targets. This effect has been attributed to the mechanism of interference, that through superposition of features, allows for enhancing memory for the features shared between targets and distractors. Noteworthy, according to the SOB-CS model (Oberauer et. al., 2012) that predicts such benefits of distraction, interference stemming from distraction should be automatically removed from WM so that targets can be maintained successfully and the removal process is assumed to be time dependent, that is being more successful with more free-time available to remove the distractors from WM. Hence, if the benefit of related distraction is in fact due to interference, more free-time in-between the processed distractors should lead to less pronounced relatedness effect, as the positive interference should be more effectively removed from WM. In our study we tested this prediction by manipulating target-distractors similarity (related vs unrelated) and unfilled inter-distractor-intervals (100ms vs 1700 ms) in the complex span task. Surprisingly, we found evidence against the interaction between relatedness and free time, indicating that the benefit of distraction does not diminish with more free time. This suggests that either positive distraction is not removed from WM at the same rate as the negative distraction, or that the relatedness benefit is not due to interference at all. To test the latter possibility we examine two possible alternative explanations of the related-distraction benefit; that related distraction is associated with lower cognitive load than unrelated distraction, or that related distraction depletes less cognitive resources than unrelated distraction.