A new perspective on forgetting in short-term memory

The proposed project aims to use new methods to study short-term memory and how distraction causes forgetting. One leading view on forgetting in short-term memory is that distracting stimuli interfere with memories only if the stimuli and the remembered items are similar in content (for example, both are verbal in nature). However, this view fails to explain recent findings that sound and vibrations can have a similarly distracting effect on verbal short-term memory. This is more consistent with the view that forgetting is caused by shifts in attention or a conflict between similar processes, rather than similar content. The proposed project aims to use vibrations as a novel form of distraction to break new ground and develop theories of short-term memory. These vibrotactile distractors afford a new perspective on forgetting in short-term memory, as theoretical advancements are made when we use different forms of perceptual stimuli. Specifically, we aim to show that vibrations produce interference in memory processes in a way that is often functionally similar to distracting sound. We also aim to show the limits of these similarities through identifying dissimilarities across vibrotactile and auditory distraction. We will evaluate the distracting effects of vibrations with several established and influential memory phenomena, and the results will have implications for the state-of-the-art of modern psychology.