Interference among memory traces

Several sources of interference in memory are identified. These sources may be grossly classified as processing interference, i.e., that due to disruption of whatever activity occurs during the input or output of to-be-remembered material, or trace interaction, i.e., that due to interference among the stored memories themselves. The latter would appear to be due to simultaneous activation of correct and incorrect associations mediated by confusion among cue stimuli. A consideration of the means by which interference is reduced suggests that interfering associates are not weakened, unlearned, or suppressed except possibly when nominal stimuli are identical and sets of target and interfering items are temporally discriminable. Discriminative encoding of cue stimuli may eliminate these associations, if it operates at the perceptual level. Otherwise, potential interfering associates are activated, but may be rendered functionally impotent by discriminating them from correct associations on the basis of either backward association with discriminative stimulus attributes or differential contextual attributes such as frequency, time, order, and strength.