Collaborative Inhibition and Semantic Recall: Improving Collaboration Through Computer‐mediated Communication

Summary Two experiments investigated the recall of nominal and collaborating groups to test the following hypotheses: (i) semantic memory, as well as episodic memory, is disrupted by collaborative recall and (ii) both episodic and semantic recall will be greater in groups collaborating via computer-mediated communication (CMC) than groups collaborating face to face. Experiment 1 investigated different collaborative constellations (nominal, face to face and parallel CMC) in a series of episodic and semantic word recall tasks. In Experiment 2, collaborative groups (nominal, face to face, parallel CMC and cyclic CMC) completed a Scrabble task in which they were required to generate words from a set of 12 letters. Both experiments demonstrated that collaborative inhibition was present in semantic recall. Parallel CMC improved recall by comparison with face-to-face collaboration in both experiments, whereas cyclic CMC did not. The underlying causes of collaborative inhibitory effects and the potential for reducing them with CMC are discussed.Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.