EFFECTS OF BACKGROUND TELEVISION ON PHONOLOGICAL AND VISUOSPATIAL WORKING-MEMORY

Research during the 1990s has demonstrated the potential of television -as-background to interfere with performance on concurrent cognitive p rocessing tasks. An experiment examined hypothesized structural interf erence effects of background television on working memory. To assess e ffects on phonologically based working memory, participants were teste d on their memory for fists of letters and digits. Background televisi on caused stronger deleterious effects on the primacy component of ver bal working memory. Participants were tested for effects on visuo-spat ial working memory using the Brooks spatial sentence memory task. Wher e participants were left to choose their own strategy for performing t he Brooks task, no significant influence of background television emer ged. When participants were instructed in the specific memory techniqu e to use in the Brooks visuo-spatial working memory task background te levision had a significant negative effect on performance. However str onger effects appeared when using a verbally based memory technique th an a spatially based technique.