Full versus divided attention and implicit memory performance

Effects of Divided Attention at Retrieval on Conceptual Implicit Memory

This study investigated whether conceptual implicit memory is sensitive to process-specific interference at the time of retrieval. Participants performed the implicit memory test of category exemplar generation (CEG; Experiments 1 and 3), or the matched explicit memory test of category-cued recall (Experiment 2), both of which are conceptually driven memory tasks, under one of two divided atten...

Running head: MEMORY RETENTION AND DIVIDED ATTENTION 1 Divided Attention: An Undesirable Difficulty in Memory Retention

How can we improve memory retention? A large body of research suggests that difficulty encountered during learning, such as when practice sessions are distributed rather than massed, can enhance later memory performance (see Bjork & Bjork, 1992). Here, we investigated whether divided attention during retrieval practice can also constitute a desirable difficulty. Following two initial study phas...

The relationship between divided attention and implicit memory: a meta-analysis.

This article reports a meta-analysis comparing the size of repetition priming in full and divided-attention (DA) conditions. The main analysis included 38 effect sizes (ES) extracted from 21 empirical studies, for a total of 2074 (full-attention) and 2148 (divided-attention) participants. The mean weighted ES was 0.357 (95% CI=0.278-0.435), indicating that divided attention produced a small, bu...

Implicit Memory versus False Memory

Selectively Distracted: Divided Attention and Memory for Important Information.

Distractions and multitasking are generally detrimental to learning and memory. Nevertheless, people often study while listening to music, sitting in noisy coffee shops, or intermittently checking their e-mail. The current experiments examined how distractions and divided attention influence one's ability to selectively remember valuable information. Participants studied lists of words that ran...