Individual differences in episodic and semantic interference tasks

Working Memory (WM) span has been related to the capacity of controlled attention in the face of interfering events. However, there are discussions about the nature (unitary or multiple) of inhibition. In this paper we explored the relation between WM span and inhibition in the semantic and episodic memory systems. In Experiment 1, high and low span participants judged the semantic relation of word pairs in the presence of irrelevant semantically related pictures (semantic inhibition). In Experiment 2, we explored the nature of episodic inhibition in a proactive interference task. Results indicated that low span participants were more susceptible to the presence of interfering events than high span individuals in both semantic and episodic tasks. This pattern of data provides support to the relation between WM span and susceptibility to interference and to the existence Of Suppression mechanisms in episodic and semantic memory.