Effects of delay of prospective memory cues in an ongoing task on prospective memory task performance

To address the mixed results reported in previous studies, the present experiments examined forgetting in prospective memory (PM) by manipulating the delay between the PM instructions and cue presentation in event-based PM tasks. PM performance was measured for delays of 2–20 min in Experiment 1 and for delays of approximately 1–10 min in Experiment 2. Experiment 2 included both focal and nonfocal PM tasks, and speed on the ongoing task was measured to examine evidence for monitoring processes across the delays tested. The results suggest that nonfocal PM performance follows a nonlinear forgetting function (i.e., rapid decline for shorter delays and slower decline for longer delays) when tested over delays from 1 to 20 min. No effect of delay was seen for the focal task tested in Experiment 2 from 1 to 10 min. In Experiment 2, ongoing-task costs were also found for the first delay but not for longer delays, suggesting that monitoring was significantly reduced between 1 and 2.5 min of the ongoing-task trials.     

The effects of interference and retention delay on temporal generalization performance

This study investigated the effect of forgetting of the standard duration on temporal discrimination in a generalization task. In two experiments, participants were given a temporal generalization task with or without a retention delay between the learning of the standard duration and the testing of the comparison durations. During this delay, they either performed or did not perform an interference task. Results failed to reveal any effect of 15-min and 24-h retention delays on time judgments (Experiment 1). However, when an interference task was performed during the 15-min delay (Experiment 2), there was a subjective shortening effect, indicating that the standard duration was judged shorter with than without an interference task. These findings suggest that when an interference task occurs immediately after initial temporal encoding, it affects the process of consolidation in reference memory.     

Forgetting in immediate serial recall: decay, temporal distinctiveness, or interference?

Three hypotheses of forgetting from immediate memory were tested: time-based decay, decreasing temporal distinctiveness, and interference. The hypotheses were represented by 3 models of serial recall: the primacy model, the SIMPLE (scale-independent memory, perception, and learning) model, and the SOB (serial order in a box) model, respectively. The models were fit to 2 experiments investigating the effect of filled delays between items at encoding or at recall. Short delays between items, filled with articulatory suppression, led to massive impairment of memory relative to a no-delay baseline. Extending the delays had little additional effect, suggesting that the passage of time alone does not cause forgetting. Adding a choice reaction task in the delay periods to block attention-based rehearsal did not change these results. The interference-based SOB fit the data best; the primacy model overpredicted the effect of lengthening delays, and SIMPLE was unable to explain the effect of delays at encoding. The authors conclude that purely temporal views of forgetting are inadequate.     

情绪一致性对有意遗忘的影响

有意遗忘是强调遗忘的有意性和指向性。对负性情绪的有意遗忘有利于个体的身心健康。本研究采用单字范式,实验一以正性、负性和中性情绪词为材料,探讨了情绪材料对有意遗忘的影响。结果发现,三类词语均表现出了显著的有意遗忘效应;实验二在实验一的基础上加入了情绪状态,探讨了情绪状态和情绪材料对有意遗忘的影响,结果发现,在积极情绪状态下,被试更多地遗忘负性情绪词;在消极情绪状态下,被试更多地遗忘中性词。表明个体对情绪信息的有意遗忘既受信息的情绪性影响,又受个体情绪状态的影响。     

Secondary memory and very rapid forgetting

Studies of recall in the absence of expectancy (e.g., Muter, 1980) have suggested that forgetting from primary memory is much more rapid than previously assumed. Two experiments examined the role of secondary memory, as reflected by encoding strategies, in determining this rate of forgetting. Experiment 1 demonstrated that the type of encoding specified by orienting tasks can influence recall in a traditional Brown-Peterson task. Experiment 2 demonstrated a similar pattern of effects of orienting task in the Muter task when recall was not expected, despite much more rapid forgetting. The type of encoding engaged by the orienting tasks did not account for Muter's results. Expectancy and orienting task appear to have separable influences on resource allocation during encoding. The presence of secondary memory influences at even the shortest retention interval indicates that forgetting from primary memory may be even more rapid than has been proposed.     

Divided attention facilitates intentional forgetting: evidence from item-method directed forgetting

This study examined the effects of post-cue interval and cognitive load on item-method directed forgetting. The results of Experiment 1 (free recall test) and Experiment 2 (cued recall test) showed that forget item retention increased as the post-cue interval increased. Moreover, increasing the cognitive load of participants by asking them to perform a secondary counting task did not impair, but rather facilitated, the intentional forgetting of the studied item under long post-cue interval conditions. These results and analyses of recall gains from the additional use of the independent cue suggest that the improved recall of forget items caused by an increase in the post-cue interval came from an automatic process, and that after receiving the forget cue, participants did not engage a suppression operation that was resource-demanded. The current findings suggest that forgetting is more effective when participants perform a secondary task after receiving the forget cue.     

Tag, you're it: Tagging as an alternative to yes/no recognition in item method directed forgetting

The current study contrasted a standard yes/no recognition task with a tagging recognition task in the context of an item-method directed forgetting paradigm. During the study phase, a series of words was presented one at a time, each followed by an instruction to remember (R) or forget (F). The retention of R and F study words was tested using either a typical yes/no recognition task or a tagging recognition task in which participants labeled each word as “R”, “F” or “New”. The directed forgetting effect observed in each task was equivalent in magnitude. However, the tagging recognition task afforded an additional analysis of the errors of misattribution that was not possible with the more typical yes/no recognition task. Interestingly, when falsely recognizing a Foil word, participants were more likely to assign an “F” tag than an “R” tag. These errors of misattribution are consistent with existing accounts of directed forgetting that suggest R words are better encoded than F words. We argue for the utility of the tagging procedure, given it does not alter the directed forgetting effect normally seen with yes/no recognition but provides additional information about errors of misattribution.     

Short-Term Forgetting of Order Under Conditions of Reduced Interference

Three experiments examined the short-term retention of order in a modified Brown-Peterson task. Our intent was to examine the loss of order memory, unconfounded by item memory, under conditions in which interference from prior trials is kept low. In previous work on the short-term forgetting of order, experimenters have tended to repeat the same items across trials or to draw from a restricted set; in our experiments, we changed the to-be-recalled items from trial to trial and used reconstruction as the retention measure. In all three experiments, very little forgetting was obtained across retention intervals that have traditionally produced dramatic and systematic loss. Our results are reminiscent of those obtained in the BrownPeterson task when performance is assessed after only the first experimental trial.     

Sweeping dishonesty under the rug: how unethical actions lead to forgetting of moral rules

Dishonest behavior can have various psychological outcomes. We examine whether one consequence could be the forgetting of moral rules. In 4 experiments, participants were given the opportunity to behave dishonestly, and thus earn undeserved money, by over-reporting their performance on an ability-based task. Before the task, they were exposed to moral rules (i.e., an honor code). Those who cheated were more likely to forget the moral rules after behaving dishonestly, even though they were equally likely to remember morally irrelevant information (Experiment 1). Furthermore, people showed moral forgetting only after cheating could be enacted but not before cheating (Experiment 2), despite monetary incentives to recall the rules accurately (Experiment 3). Finally, moral forgetting appears to result from decreased access to moral rules after cheating (Experiment 4).     

List-method directed forgetting can be selective: Evidence from the 3-list and the 2-list tasks

When people are cued to forget previously studied irrelevant information and study new information instead, such cuing typically leads to forgetting of the precue information. But what do people forget if, before the forget cue is provided, both irrelevant and relevant information have been encoded? Using relatively short item lists, we examined in a series of three experiments whether participants are able to selectively forget the irrelevant precue information, when relevant and irrelevant precue items were presented subsequently in two separate lists (3-list task) and when the two types of items were presented alternatingly within a single list (2-list task). Selective forgetting of the irrelevant precue items arose in the 3-list task, independent of modality of item presentation and level of discriminability of the precue lists, and it arose in the 2-list task. The findings suggest that, at least with relatively short precue lists, participants may well be able to selectively forget irrelevant precue information when cued to do so. Implications of the results for theoretical accounts of list-method directed forgetting are discussed.     

The effect of different distractions on remembering delayed intentions

In safety-critical domains, frequently intentions need to be delayed until an ongoing task is completed. Research using the delay-execute paradigm showed that interruptions during the delay cause forgetting. However, staff members often handle an initial distraction not by interrupting the ongoing task but by acknowledging the distraction or multitasking. In Experiments 1a and 1b, we observed that, compared to a no distraction condition, multitasking significantly decreased remembering of intentions and interrupting decreased remembering even further. In Experiment 2, interruptions with context change reduced remembering of intentions compared to uninterrupted delays, and at the same time, interruptions without context change improved memory performance compared to uninterrupted delays. However, improved memory performance resulted in decreased interrupting task performance. Theoretically, the results support the contextual cueing mechanism of delay-execute tasks. Considering safety-critical domains, multitasking, interruptions and context changes can contribute to forgetting of tasks.     

Interpreting visual preferences in the visual paired-comparison task

Performance on the visual paired-comparison (VPC) task has typically been interpreted with E. Sokolov's (1963) comparator model of the orienting response; novelty preferences are interpreted as evidence of retention, whereas null preferences are interpreted as evidence of forgetting. Here the authors capitalized on the verbal nature of human adults to clarify the interpretation of visual preferences in VPC performance. In 2 experiments, adults were tested on either the VPC task or a forced-choice recognition task after delays of 3 min to 12 months. In Experiment 1, adults tested on the VPC task exhibited novelty preferences after short delays, null preferences after intermediate delays, and familiarity preferences after long delays. In Experiment 2, adults tested on the forced-choice recognition task exhibited high levels of accuracy irrespective of delay, but the latency with which they recognized the stimuli increased systematically over the retention interval. These data are inconsistent with a simple Sokolovian interpretation of VPC performance and instead suggest that memory may be expressed as a novelty preference, null preference, or familiarity preference depending on the accessibility of the representation.     

False memories are hard to inhibit: differential effects of directed forgetting on accurate and false recall in the DRM procedure

Directed forgetting research shows that people can inhibit the retrieval of words that they were previously instructed to forget. The present research applied the directed forgetting procedure to the Deese/Roediger and McDermott (DRM) recall task to determine if directed forgetting instructions have similar or different effects on accurate and false memory. After studying lists of semantically related words, some participants were told to forget those lists, whereas other participants were not. All participants were then shown additional lists to remember. Following study, all participants were asked to free recall as many of the studied words as possible, including those they were previously instructed to forget. Directed forgetting instructions inhibited the accurate recall of studied words, but not the false recall of nonstudied critical words, whether measured by a within-participant or between-participants design. Contrary to an implicit activation hypothesis, false memories survived instructions to forget. These findings were reviewed in terms of fuzzy trace theory and the activation/monitoring approach to false memory.     

Very rapid forgetting: Reply to Cunningham,Healy, Till,Fendrich, and Dimitry

In this comment, it is argued that the experiments by Cunningham, Healy, Till, Fendrich, and Dimitry (1993) do not constitute failures to replicate Muter’s (1980) finding of very rapid forgetting and do not undermine the conclusion of more rapid forgetting from primary memory than had previously been estimated. In Cunningham et al.’s experiments, expectancy of recall after a filled retention interval, a crucial variable in very rapid forgetting, was more than an order of magnitude higher than in Muter’s experiments, and the distracting task was substantially easier.     

Inhibiting retrieval of trauma cues in adults reporting histories of childhood sexual abuse

Are people who report having forgotten their childhood sexual abuse (CSA) characterised by superior ability to inhibit retrieval of disturbing material? To test this hypothesis, we asked adults reporting either repressed, recovered, or continuous memories of CSA or no history of CSA to participate in a directed forgetting experiment (list method). They rated the emotionality of two consecutive lists of trauma‐related and positive words. After the first list, the experimenter instructed participants to forget these words, and to continue rating the remaining words. A surprise recall task revealed robust directed forgetting and valence effects: All groups recalled more words from the second list than from the first list, and recalled more trauma words than positive ones. Participants reporting either repressed or recovered memories of CSA did not exhibit superior forgetting of trauma versus positive words relative to the other two groups. Finally, a subsidiary analysis revealed that participants exhibiting a “repressor” coping style (low self‐reported anxiety plus high defensiveness) did not exhibit superior directed forgetting of trauma words.     

The crucial role of postcue encoding in directed forgetting and context-dependent forgetting

People can intentionally forget previously studied material if, after study, a forget cue is provided and new material is learned. It has recently been suggested that such list-method directed forgetting arises because the forget cue induces a change in internal context and causes context-dependent forgetting of the studied material (L. Sahakyan & C. M. Kelley, 2002). The authors compared directed forgetting and context-dependent forgetting by examining whether, like a forget cue, a change in internal context needs subsequent learning of new material to be effective. Participants studied an item list and, after study, received a remember cue or a forget cue or their internal context was changed through an imagination task. In each condition, half the participants learned a second list, and the other half fulfilled an unrelated distractor task. Both the forget cue and the change in internal context induced forgetting of the first list only when learning of the second list was interpolated. These results suggest that postcue encoding of new material is crucial for both directed forgetting and (some forms of) context-dependent forgetting.     

Remember to blink: Reduced attentional blink following instructions to forget

This study used rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) to determine whether, in an item-method directed forgetting task, study word processing ends earlier for forget words than for remember words. The critical manipulation required participants to monitor an RSVP stream of black nonsense strings in which a single blue word was embedded. The next item to follow the word was a string of red fs that instructed the participant to forget the word or green rs that instructed the participant to remember the word. After the memory instruction, a probe string of black xs or os appeared at postinstruction positions 1–8. Accuracy in reporting the identity of the probe string revealed an attenuated attentional blink following instructions to forget. A yes–no recognition task that followed the study trials confirmed a directed forgetting effect, with better recognition of remember words than forget words. Considered in the context of control conditions that required participants to commit either all or none of the study words to memory, the pattern of probe identification accuracy following the directed forgetting task argues that an intention to forget releases limited-capacity attentional resources sooner than an instruction to remember—despite participants needing to maintain an ongoing rehearsal set in both cases.     

Wakeful rest alleviates interference-based forgetting

Retroactive interference (RI)—the disruptive influence of events occurring after the formation of a new memory—is one of the primary causes of forgetting. Placing individuals within an environment that postpones interference should, therefore, greatly reduce the likelihood of information being lost from memory. For example, a short period of wakeful rest should diminish interference-based forgetting. To test this hypothesis, participants took part in a foreign language learning activity and were shown English translations of 20 Icelandic words for immediate recall. Half of the participants were then given an 8-min rest before completing a similar or dissimilar interfering distractor task. The other half did not receive a rest until after the distractor task, at which point interference had already taken place. All participants were then asked to translate the Icelandic words for a second time. Results revealed that retention was significantly worse at the second recall test, but being allowed a brief rest before completing the distractor task helped reduce the amount of forgetting. Taking a short, passive break can shield new memories from RI and alleviate forgetting.     

Intrinsic motivation and attentional capture from gamelike features in a visual search task

In psychology research studies, the goals of the experimenter and the goals of the participants often do not align. Researchers are interested in having participants who take the experimental task seriously, whereas participants are interested in earning their incentive (e.g., money or course credit) as quickly as possible. Creating experimental methods that are pleasant for participants and that reward them for effortful and accurate data generation, while not compromising the scientific integrity of the experiment, would benefit both experimenters and participants alike. Here, we explored a gamelike system of points and sound effects that rewarded participants for fast and accurate responses. We measured participant engagement at both cognitive and perceptual levels and found that the point system (which invoked subtle, anonymous social competition between participants) led to positive intrinsic motivation, while the sound effects (which were pleasant and arousing) led to attentional capture for rewarded colors. In a visual search task, points were awarded after each trial for fast and accurate responses, accompanied by short, pleasant sound effects. We adapted a paradigm from Anderson, Laurent, and Yantis (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108(25):10367-10371, 2011b), in which participants completed a training phase during which red and green targets were probabilistically associated with reward (a point bonus multiplier). During a test phase, no points or sounds were delivered, color was irrelevant to the task, and previously rewarded targets were sometimes presented as distractors. Significantly longer response times on trials in which previously rewarded colors were present demonstrated attentional capture, and positive responses to a five-question intrinsic-motivation scale demonstrated participant engagement.     

Retrieval-practice task affects relationship between working memory capacity and retrieval-induced forgetting

Retrieving a subset of items from memory can cause forgetting of other items in memory, a phenomenon referred to as retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF). Individuals who exhibit greater amounts of RIF have been shown to also exhibit superior working memory capacity (WMC) and faster stop-signal reaction times (SSRTs), results which have been interpreted as suggesting that RIF reflects an inhibitory process that is mediated by the processes of executive control. Across four experiments, we sought to further elucidate this issue by manipulating the way in which participants retrieved items during retrieval practice and examining how the resulting effects of forgetting correlated with WMC (Experiments 1–3) and SSRT (Experiment 4). Significant correlations were observed when participants retrieved items from an earlier study phase (within-list retrieval practice), but not when participants generated items from semantic memory (extra-list retrieval practice). These results provide important new insight into the role of executive-control processes in RIF.