Inhibiting effects of recall

Evidence is reviewed indicating that output interference—the deleterious effects of recall of some information on information recalled later—occurs both in primary and secondary memory. It appears that output interference provides at least a partial account for the disparity between information available in memory and its accessibility at recall. It is argued that consideration of output interference may provide a helpful perspective in resolving problems in the study of episodic and semantic memory, including the negative effects of part-list cueing and the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon.