Interference Affects Working Memory Bilingualism

Abstract
Keywords: Interference, Memory, Caffeine, Bilingualism

How Interference Affects Working Memory Recall
Attention and memory tend to go together. The better attention we pay to something, the better we can remember it later on. This notion memory and attention pertains greatly to working memory, which deals with small amounts of information that are ready for immediate use (Chun & Turk-Browne, 2007). The connection between attention and memory has been studied for many years through MRI’s, EEG’s (Electroencephalography ), and memory recall tests (word lists/letter lists) (Jones, Hughes, & Macken, 2010). Mainly, what studies have tried to find is whether direct attention is needed for encoding of information (Fougnie, 2008).Distractions
have been found to affect how well we pay attention to things and thus tend to affect how well we encode information in our working memory which appears lead to problems in recalling the information even in short periods of time (Chun & Turk-Browne, 2007). Distractions have been found to have an effect on our memory (Fougnie, 2008). Noise is a known distractor, certain noises affect people in certain ways and depending on when and how these noises are used, they can affect how well we pay attention and recall the information from the tasks we were performing (Hughes, Jones, & Macken). There are a number of noises that are deemed annoying/distracting such as a dentist’s drill, crying baby and construction noises, however, an extremely common noise that has been deemed greatly annoying/distracting is a ringing cellphone (Bell, Buchner, & Röer, 2014). The research performed by Bell (Bell et al, 2014) found that one of the noises most people surveyed found annoying was a ringing cellphone. From this, the researchers decided to see how much of a nuisance an unanswered phone was so they performed a repeated measures test with their participants using either the participants ringtone, a different, irrelevant ringtone during encoding, or silence. They found that participants performed worse when they had to ignore the cellphone regardless of whether it was their own or not. This recent study shows us how interference, in particular, noise interference, from the unanswered cellphone affects how well we pay attention and can lead to worse recall, even though cellphones are common, everyday artifacts. Methods
Participants
There were 40 participants conveniently selected by the confederates.
The participants were separated into two conditions, Group A which was the no distraction condition, and Group B which was the distraction condition. The average age of the participants was 25. 08 (SD = 8.03) with the minimum age being 18 and the maximum age being 52. The sample consisted of 20% males and 80% females. The ethnicities of the partipants were as follows: 17.5% Asian or Asian American, 7.5% Black or African American, 32.5% Hispanic or Latino, 30% Non-Hispanic White, 12.5% Other. Out of the 40 participants, 72.5% were fluent in languages other than English and 27.5% were not fluent in other languages. (ADD LANGUAGE). (ADD
CAFFEINE)
Materials
Memory Recall Survey. This survey consisted of 15 questions measuring the demographics, attention span, bilingualism, and caffeine consumption of participants. The demographics asked for participant’s age, gender and ethnicity. Following these, we asked if English was their first language, whether they were fluent in more than one language and how many languages they spoke. We then asked if they became easily distracted and asked them to pick a specific noise they found most annoying/distracting. After this we asked if they consumed caffeinated beverages. We also asked them to check all the caffeinated products that applied from a list of 10 caffeinated food and beverage items, including different coffee options( brewed, instant, espresso), tea, chocolate, energy drinks and soda. We asked how many caffeinated drinks they consumed per week, and if they had consumed any caffeine today. Lastly, if they answered yes, to consuming caffeine the day of the task, we asked them how many caffeinated beverages they had today, and if they felt more awake/alert after drinking a cup of coffee.
Word List. The word list consisted of ten neutral words, some including rock, desk, plug, wall, and ring.
Cell Phone. The cell phone was used to distract participants with the ringtone Presto. This ringtone consisted of loud and shrill sound effects.
Procedure
Participants were selected out of convenience and separated evenly into two groups, Group A and Group B. Once selected, participants filled out a consent form agreeing to continue with the study. Participants then filled out the Memory Recall Survey and were then told to wait for further instructions after completing it. Once they were finished, participants in group A were given the World List, and were told that they would have one minute to memorize the ten neutral words on the list. After the one minute was up, participants handed back the word list, and had an additional minute to recall and record any words they remembered on the back of their Memory Recall Survey. After completing this task, subjects were thanked for their participation and free to leave. Participants in Group B were given the same instructions as Group A, the difference being that a cellphone was placed in a hidden area of the room, and triggered to ring in the Presto ringtone during the full minute of recall. Once subjects were finished, they were thanked for their participation in our study and free to leave as well.
Results
Independent sample t-tests and correlation tests were performed to test for significance between the different variables.
The results from our Independent sample t-test between the two conditions (noise/no noise) illustrated that participants in Group B (noise condition) recalled more words than participants in Group A (no noise), t(38) = -2.14 , p <.05. The correlation between caffeine consumption and memory recall was found to be of significance r(39) = .41, p< .01. The following t-test measured gender differences in memory recall across both groups, it did not show any differences among gender, t(38) = -1.33, p = .19. Our last test was a correlation between bilingualism (fluency) and memory recall. We failed to find a significance between these two variables r(39) = -.04, p =
.80.

References
Jones, D., Hughes, R., & Macken, W. (2010). Auditory Distraction And Serial Memory: The Avoidable And The Ineluctable. Noise and Health, 12(49), 201-209. DOI: 10.4103/1463-1741.70497
Ljungberg, J. K., Hansson, P., Andrés, P., Josefsson, M., Nilsson, L., & Bolhuis, J. J. (2013). A Longitudinal Study of Memory Advantages in Bilinguals. PLoS ONE, 8(9), e73029. DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0073029
Nehlig, A. (2010). Is Caffeine a Cognitive Enhancer?. Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, 20, S85-S94. DOI 10.3233/JAD-2010-091315