Proactive interference

From MerrimackWiki

Definition

When information learned previously interferes with learning new information.

Significance

Proactive interference causes memory of old information to interfere with the learning of new information. Because of this, it becomes harder to remember the new information. Proactive interference explains how our memory hits overload at a certain point and can no longer retain information. Interference is a basic mechanism for forgetting. An example of proactive interference is memorizing a phone number and then having to remember another phone number that has some of the same numbers. In this case, the remembered old number is going to interfere with the ability to remember the new number. As more and more numbers are presented, proactive interference increases.