Underwood and Postman (1960)

Underwood and Postman (1960)

1. INTERFERENCE

2. Aim

   • To see if new learning interferes with previous learning

3. Method

   • Participants were in 2 groups
     • Group A - asked to learn a list of paired words (cat-tree, apple-lake, candle-table)
       • They were then asked to learn another list of paired words (cat-glass, apple-sadness, candle-whale)
         • Group B were only asked to learn the first list
           • Both groups were asked to recall the first list of words

4. Results

   • Group B's recall of the first list was more accurate than Group A

5. Conclusion

   • New learning will cause people to recall previously learned information with less accuracy