Using prior knowledge to minimize interference when learning large amounts of information

Memory for details about people: familiarity, relatedness, and gender congruency

“…There was also a main effect of learning round as performance tended to decrease across rounds, reflecting interference, F(2, 92) = 5.736, MSE = .005, p = .005, η 2 = .111. However, as in previous studies (Kole & Healy, 2007;Van Overschelde & Healy, 2001), this pattern of interference held only for the unfamiliar condition. Performance increased across rounds for the familiar condition; the interaction between familiarity and learning round was significant, F(2, 92) = 13.334, MSE = .005, p < .001, η 2 = .225 (see top panel of Fig.…”

“…Subjects learned fictitious details about either familiar individuals (including friends and relatives) or unfamiliar individuals, and they were tested both immediately and after a 1-week delay. Previous research demonstrates a large mnemonic benefit for familiarity (e.g., Kole & Healy, 2007); thus, we predict better memory for details about familiar than for unfamiliar individuals. The previous advantage for familiarity could be based on enhanced retention for details about both family and friends or just one of those categories because no differentiation was made between those categories previously.…”

“…A set of 144 fabricated details, which served as the learning set, was adopted with minor modifications from that used by Van Overschelde and Healy (2001) and Kole and Healy (2007). Each detail was presented as a statement including person, verb phrase, and category exemplar in that order (e.g., Linda Hanley drives a BMW); 12 unique details were associated with each of 12 individuals.…”

“…In a previous study we demonstrated that subjects learn (fictitious) details more quickly about familiar individuals than about strangers (Kole & Healy, 2007). To explain the advantage for familiar individuals, we posited that knowledge of individuals is stored in long-term memory as mental models (e.g., Park, 1986;van Dijk & Kintsch, 1983), or as integrated representations consisting of a set of highly interconnected details.…”

“…For both of the experiments in this study, the same procedure and details were used as in the study by Kole and Healy (2007) except for the addition of a 1-week retention test and the separation of familiar individuals into friends and relatives. In Experiment 1, subjects learned details either about friends and relatives or about strangers, and performance on each type of relation was compared.…”