Abstract
We examined the effect of competition on briefly thinking of just-seen items. In Experiment 1, participants saw a set of either three related or three unrelated words and then read one of the words again (repeat) or thought briefly of one of the words (refresh). Participants read the set a second time, after which they either refreshed a second word from the set or read a new word. In comparison with reading a new word, response times were slower for refreshing the second item when participants had just refreshed than when they had just repeated the first item. This increase was larger for related words than for unrelated words and for older adults than for younger adults. In Experiment 2, a negative impact of refreshing was observed when participants repeated a different word from the set. The pattern of findings suggests that the negative impact of refreshing comes from increased competition from the refreshed item, rather than from inhibition of the nonrefreshed items.
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This research was supported by Grants AG15793 and AG09253 from the National Institute on Aging to M.K.J. and by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to J.A.H.
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Higgins, J.A., Johnson, M.K. The consequence of refreshing for access to nonselected items in young and older adults. Memory & Cognition 37, 164–174 (2009). https://doi.org/10.3758/MC.37.2.164
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/MC.37.2.164