Thesis (B.Sc)--University of Hong Kong, 2010.Includes bibliographical references (p. 28-30)."A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Bachelor of Science (Speech and Hearing Sciences), The University of Hong Kong, June 30, 2010."The present study investigated nonverbal inhibitory control of proactive interference in
normal individuals using a probe-recognition task. Visual stimuli consisted of 130 abstract
figures selected or modified from the Aggie Figure Learning Test (Majdan, Sziklas, &
Jones-Gotman, 1996). The performance of 34 undergraduate participants showed a
significant visual similarity interference effect, indicated by prolonged response times and
reduced accuracy rates, only when the target probe was related to an item in the negative
same list condition but not in the negative previous list condition. This implied that the
effect of non-verbal proactive interference affected items that were relevant, in the same
trial, and did not extend to items that were no longer relevant, in the following trial. The
present findings suggest evidence for an inhibitory control process being carried out to
prevent cross-trial visual similarity interference. Possible modifications to the negative same
list condition for improving test validity are discussed.published_or_final_versionSpeech and Hearing SciencesBachelorBachelor of Science in Speech and Hearing Science
