Summary: Performance anticipation reduces memory for pre-performance information by diverting attention away from that information.
Source: University of Waterloo
Anticipating your own performance at work or school may hinder your ability to remember what happened before your presentation, a study from the University of Waterloo has found.
The study’s findings also suggest that the presence of an audience may be an important factor that contributes to this pre-performance memory deficit.
“Performance anticipation could weaken memory because people tend to focus on the details of their upcoming presentation instead of paying attention to information that occurs before their performance,” says lead author Noah Forrin, a postdoctoral fellow in Psychology at Waterloo. “People who experience performance anxiety may be particularly likely to experience this phenomenon.”
Building on what previous research called the next-in-line effect, Forrin and his co-authors explored how different ways of preparing for a presentation impact the pre-performance memory deficit.
They experimented with a variety of techniques that enhance memory, including the production effect, which is the simple yet powerful idea that we can remember something best if we say it aloud.
One of the study’s co-authors, Psychology professor Colin MacLeod, coined the term production effect from previous research which identified that reading aloud involves at least three distinct processes that help to encode memory: articulation, audition, and self-reference. Research by Forrin and MacLeod has demonstrated that reading aloud is better for memory than reading silently, writing, or hearing another person speak aloud.
In the new study, however, the findings suggest that the production effect has a downside: When people anticipate reading out loud, they may have worse memory for information that they encounter before reading aloud. The researchers conducted four experiments with 400 undergraduate students and found that students have worse memory for words that they read silently when they anticipate having to read upcoming words aloud (compared to when they anticipate having to read upcoming words silently).
“Our results show that performance anticipation may be detrimental to effective memory encoding strategies,” said Forrin. “Students frequently have upcoming performances–whether for class presentations or the expectation of class participation.”
“We are currently examining whether the anticipation of those future performances reduces students’ learning and memory in the classroom.”
One strategy to avoid pre-performance memory deficits, says Forrin, is “try to get your performance over with by being the first student in class (or employee in a meeting) to present. After that, you can focus on others’ presentations without anticipating your own.”
Source:
University of Waterloo
Media Contacts:
Matthew Grant – University of Waterloo
Image Source:
The image is in the public domain.
Original Research: Closed access
“Wait for it… performance anticipation reduces recognition memory”. Forrin, Brandon C.W. Ralph, Navi K. Dhaliwal, Daniel Smilek, and MacLeod.
Journal of Memory and Language doi:10.1016/j.jml.2019.104050.
Abstract
Wait for it… performance anticipation reduces recognition memory
Conventional wisdom suggests that there is an encoding decrement prior to performing in front of others. We hypothesized that this pre-performance memory deficit—the next-in-line effect (Brenner, 1973)—should also occur in the context of mixed-list memory experiments where one of the conditions requires performance. As the testing ground for this prediction, we used the production effect (i.e., enhanced memory for words that are read aloud vs. silently). Specifically, we examined whether performance anticipation imposes a memorial cost on silent items studied in a mixed list (among “performed” aloud items) relative to a pure-silent list. Experiment 1 established this mixed-list cost in recognition (replicating Bodner, Taikh, & Fawcett, 2014). In Experiments 2 and 3, providing foreknowledge of the task to be performed on upcoming study items—thereby allowing participants to see when they would have to read aloud—led to diminished memory for silent items that were studied immediately before aloud items. In Experiment 4, in the absence of an experimenter, the pre-performance cost to silent items was non-significant (with Bayesian evidence supporting the null), consistent with the notion that the presence of the experimenter (a social factor) contributed to performance anticipation. Taken together, these results imply that performance anticipation drives the mixed-list cost of production shown by the silent items (and may explain costs observed in other memory research). Performance anticipation may reduce memory for pre-performance information by diverting attention away from that information.
