Forgetting by remembering: Stereotype inhibition through rehearsal of alternative aspects of identity

We applied previous research on retrieval-induced forgetting to the issue of stereotype inhibition. All participants learned about a target person who belonged to a stereotyped group, and then practiced retrieving a subset of the target’s characteristics. When participants practiced individuating information about the target, they showed inhibited memory for the target’s stereotypic traits. When participants practiced stereotypic information about the target, they showed inhibited memory for: (a) traits associated with another stereotyped aspect of the target’s identity; (b) individuating traits of the target; and (c) other, unpracticed traits of the target associated with the same stereotype. Stereotype belief moderated these inhibition effects; the more strongly participants believed in the stereotype, the less inhibition of stereotype-relevant traits they showed.     

Forgetting motor programmes: Retrieval dynamics in procedural memory

When motor sequences are stored in memory in a categorised manner, selective retrieval of some sequences can induce forgetting of the non-retrieved sequences. We show that such retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) occurs not only in cued recall but also in a test assessing memory indirectly by providing novel test cues without involving recall of items. Participants learned several sequential finger movements (SFMs), each consisting of the movement of two fingers of either the left or the right hand. Subsequently, they performed retrieval practice on half of the sequences of one hand. A final task then required participants to enter letter dyads. A subset of these dyads corresponded to the previously learned sequences. RIF was present in the response times during the entering of the dyads. The finding of RIF in the slowed-down execution of motor programmes overlapping with initially trained motor sequences suggests that inhibition resolved interference between procedural representations of the acquired motor sequences of one hand during retrieval practice.     

Recognition memory and awareness: A high-frequency advantage in the accuracy of knowing

The well-established advantage of low-frequency words over high-frequency words in recognition memory has been found to occur in remembering and not knowing. Two experiments employed remember and know judgements, and divided attention to investigate the possibility of an effect of word frequency on know responses given appropriate study conditions. With undivided attention at study, the usual low-frequency advantage in the accuracy of remember responses, but no effect on know responses, was obtained. Under a demanding divided attention task at encoding, a high-frequency advantage in the accuracy of know responses was obtained. The results are discussed in relation to theories of knowing, particularly those incorporating perceptual and conceptual fluency.     

On the durability of retrieval-induced forgetting

Information retrieved from memory becomes more recallable in the future than it would have been otherwise. Competing information associated with the same cues, however, tends to become less recallable, at least for a while. Whether the latter effect—referred to as retrieval-induced forgetting—is persistent, or only transient, is the question that motivated the present research. Participants studied category-exemplar pairs, practised retrieving other exemplars of half the categories, and, finally, were tested for their ability to recall initially studied exemplars after a 5-min delay (half the items) and after 1 week (the remaining items). In addition, for half the categories, opportunities to restudy the exemplars were provided between cycles of retrieval practice. The results demonstrate that retrieval-induced forgetting can persist for as long as a week, but that such forgetting is eliminated when participants are intermittently reexposed to unpractised items during retrieval practice.     

Explaining retrieval-induced forgetting: A change in mental context between the study and restudy practice phases is not sufficient to cause forgetting

Retrieving information can impair the subsequent recall of related information. Such retrieval-induced forgetting is often attributed to inhibitory mechanisms, but Jonker, MacLeod, and Seli (2013) recently proposed an alternative account. In their view, the study and retrieval-practice phases constitute two disparate contexts, and impairment of unpractised members from practised categories is attributable to their being absent from the retrieval-practice context, which is where, according to Jonker et al., participants preferentially search at the time of final test. In evidence of this account, Jonker et al. showed that even restudy practice—which is assumed by the inhibitory account to be insufficient to cause forgetting (i.e., retrieval-specificity)—can cause forgetting when a mental context change is inserted between study and restudy. The present research sought to replicate this finding while also testing the possibility that a far mental context change would cause more forgetting than a near mental context change. In Experiment 1, participants described a vacation inside the United States (near) or outside the United States (far). In Experiments 2 and 3, participants described the layout of their own home (near) or their parents’ home (far). In contrast to the predictions of the context account, however, but consistent with the predictions of the inhibitory account, none of the restudy-plus-context-change conditions resulted in significant forgetting.     

Retrieval-induced forgetting is associated with increased positivity when imagining the future

People often think of themselves and their experiences in a more positive light than is objectively justified. Inhibitory control processes may promote this positivity bias by modulating the accessibility of negative thoughts and episodes from the past, which then limits their influence in the construction of imagined future events. We tested this hypothesis by investigating the correlation between retrieval-induced forgetting and the extent to which individuals imagine positive and negative episodic future events. First, we measured performance on a task requiring participants to imagine personal episodic events (either positive or negative), and then we correlated that measure with retrieval-induced forgetting. As predicted, individuals who exhibited higher levels of retrieval-induced forgetting imagined fewer negative episodic future events than did individuals who exhibited lower levels of retrieval-induced forgetting. This finding provides new insight into the possible role of retrieval-induced forgetting in autobiographical memory.     

Predicting first intercourse among urban early adolescent girls: The role of emotions

Little is known about how girls perceive their ongoing or future sexual experiences, especially the emotions that they associate with these experiences. This study examined how early adolescent girls characterise first intercourse experiences in terms of positive and negative emotions over a one-year period. A US sample of 162 girls (12–14 years), primarily Latina and Black, completed two interviews one year apart that assessed sexual cognitions, affect, and behaviour. Girls anticipated primarily negative emotions associated with first intercourse, but recalled primarily positive emotions for first and recent intercourse experiences. In addition, girls’ emotion scores proved more useful than two types of cognitions (intentions and perceived readiness) and pre-intercourse sexual experience in predicting transitions to intercourse over the one-year period.     

Trait expectancies and stereotype expectancies have the same effect on person memory

Two studies examined whether trait expectancies and stereotype expectancies similarly affected memory for expectancy-relevant behaviors. The results of both studies showed that, when activated in identical ways, trait expectancies and stereotype expectancies had similar effects on recall. Better recall was obtained for expectancy-incongruent items when expectancies were activated in relatively overt ways, while better recall for expectancy-congruent items was obtained when expectancies were activated in less overt ways. Additional analyses examining the order of events that emerged in the recall protocols provided little evidence that participants attempted to reconcile the items, as would be predicted by some earlier models of person memory (e.g., Srull, 1981). The implications of these findings for how social expectancies guide social information processing are discussed.     

Examining the costs and benefits of inhibition in memory retrieval

Inhibitory control is thought to serve an adaptive function in controlling behavior, with individual differences predicting variation in numerous cognitive functions. However, inhibition is more properly construed as inducing both benefits and costs to performance. Benefits arise at the point when inhibition prevents expression of an unwanted or contextually inappropriate response; costs arise later, when access to the inhibited representation is required by other processes. Here we illustrate how failure to consider both the costs and benefits of inhibition has generated confusion in the literature on individual differences in cognitive control. Using retrieval-induced forgetting as a model case, we illustrate this by showing that changing the way that retrieval-induced forgetting is measured to allow greater expression of the benefits of inhibition together with the costs can reduce and even reverse the theoretically predicted correlation between motor and memory inhibition. Specifically, we show that when the final test in a retrieval-induced forgetting procedure employs item-specific cues (i.e., category-plus-stem cued recall and item-recognition) that better isolate the lingering costs of inhibition, better motor response inhibition (faster stop-signal reaction times) predicts greater retrieval-induced forgetting. In striking contrast, when the final test is less well controlled, allowing both the costs and benefits of inhibition to contribute, motor response inhibition has the opposite relationship with retrieval-induced forgetting. These findings underscore the importance of considering the correlated costs and benefits problem when studying individual differences in inhibitory control. More generally, they suggest that a shared inhibition mechanism may underlie people’s ability to control memories and actions.     

Selective cues to forget can fail to cause forgetting

Recent research has found that individuals can selectively forget a subset of items through directed forgetting. The goal of the present study was to replicate this selective directed forgetting effect and elucidate its underlying mechanisms. Unfortunately, results from four experiments failed to find any evidence of selective directed forgetting. Participants failed to forget any items when instructed to forget a subset of items from a first list before learning a second list. Participants were only successful in forgetting items from the first list when they were instructed to forget all items from the first list before learning the second list.     

Minimum presentation time for masked facial expression discrimination

Backward masking is a popular method of preventing awareness of facial expressions, but concerns have been expressed as to the effectiveness of masking in previous research, which may have resulted in unjustified claims of unconscious processing. We examined the minimum presentation time for discrimination of fearful, angry, happy and neutral faces in a backward masking task using both objective sensitivity measures, based on signal detection analysis, and subjective awareness ratings. Results from two experiments showed for all expressions the mean sensitivity and the sensitivity scores of most individual participants were above chance at presentation times of 20 ms. Awareness ratings for happy, fearful and angry also exceeded baseline ratings from 20 ms onwards. Overall sensitivity in both experiments was greatest for happy expressions, which is an agreement with previous reports. The results support the possibility of incomplete masking in earlier studies that used masking to prevent awareness of facial expressions.     

Remembering the past and imagining the future: Examining the consequences of mental time travel on memory

Cognitive, neuropsychological, and neuroimaging evidence suggests that remembering the past and imagining the future rely on overlapping processes in episodic memory. The three experiments reported here examine the consequences of remembering the past and imagining the future on the accessibility of other information in memory. Participants first studied events associated with a specific context and then either (a) retrieved past autobiographical events associated with that same context or (b) imagined future autobiographical events associated with that same context. Replicating and extending evidence of retrieval-induced forgetting, remembering autobiographical events from the past caused participants to forget the related studied events. However, imagining future autobiographical events failed to cause participants to forget the related studied events. These results suggest an important difference in the memorial consequences of remembering and imagining.     

Inhibition in Goal Systems: A Retrieval-Induced Forgetting Account

In social psychological models of goals, particular means or goals that receive more activation are pursued while their counterparts are “inhibited.” To account for inhibition, these theories emphasize structural distribution of resources and the consequences of goal or means choices. Absent are alternate accounts of inhibition based on memory processes that rely on retrieval or recall of items. We propose that the act of recalling means or goals from memory entails inhibition of competing alternatives. Two experiments using repeated retrieval paradigms present evidence that recalling one means associated with a particular goal inhibits competing means. Moreover, this inhibitory mechanism is sensitive to the structural relationship of goals and means. Implications for models of inhibition in goal pursuit are discussed.     

Additive effects of inhibiting attention to objects and locations in three-dimensional displays

One of the processes thought to underlie visual selection works by biasing attention away from either recently examined locations or objects. The extent of this “inhibition” is greatest when the inhibited object and the inhibited location coincide. In Experiment 1, rectangles are presented stereoscopically at different depths but at similar positions horizontally and vertically. Here, any inhibition should be based solely on a spatial code, as the objects, the rectangles are clearly separate objects. In Experiment 2, the corners of the rectangles are joined to produce a single cuboid that extends in depth space. Now inhibition based on both spatial and object codes should be seen because even when on different depth planes the cue and target are associated with the same object. Consistent with our understanding of the additive effects of inhibition of space and object codes, the extent of inhibition in the second study is almost double that of the first. The results further suggest that space-based inhibition operates within a two-dimensional representation while object-based inhibition utilizes a three-dimensional representation.     

Egalitarian goals trigger stereotype inhibition: A proactive form of stereotype control

Stereotype activation is often described as beyond control, unable to be prevented by willing it or engaging the self-regulatory system. Four experiments illustrate that this initial stage of the stereotyping process is controllable. Stereotypes are shown to be implicitly inhibited as part of a goal shielding process. In each experiment, egalitarian goals are triggered through a task in which participants contemplate a past failure at being egalitarian to African American men. This is followed in each experiment by a task that measures stereotype activation/inhibition using reaction times to words (either control words or stereotype-relevant words) that follow the presentation of either faces of Black or White men. The first two experiments examine participants with egalitarian goals versus those with a control goal, whereas the last two experiments examine people with egalitarian goals versus those whose egalitarian strivings have been satisfied (by contemplating success at being egalitarian). Only participants with egalitarian goals exhibit stereotype inhibition, and this occurs despite the fact that they lack awareness of the inhibition and lack the conscious intent to inhibit stereotypes at the time the response is made.     

Providing corrective feedback during retrieval practice does not increase retrieval-induced forgetting

Recalling a subset of studied materials can impair subsequent retrieval of related, nontested materials. In two experiments, we examined the influence of providing corrective feedback (no feedback, immediate feedback, delayed feedback) during retrieval practice on this retrieval-induced forgetting effect. Performance was assessed with category cued recall (e.g., recall all exemplars studied under Weather), category-and-stem cued recall (e.g., Weather–B___), and recognition. We report a dissociation between the effects of feedback on memory of the tested materials and the nontested materials. Whereas providing immediate or delayed feedback (compared to no feedback) improved recall and recognition of the tested items, it had no influence on retrieval-induced forgetting. These results are consistent with the inhibition account of retrieval-induced forgetting. From an applied perspective, this finding is encouraging for students and educators who use testing to foster learning.     

Escaping mental fixation: Incubation and inhibition in creative problem solving

The inhibition underlying retrieval-induced forgetting has been argued to play a crucial role in the ability to overcome interference in memory and cognition. Supporting this conjecture, recent research has found that participants who exhibit greater levels of retrieval-induced forgetting are better at overcoming fixation on the Remote Associates Test (RAT) than are participants who exhibit reduced levels of retrieval-induced forgetting. If the ability to inhibit inappropriate responses improves the ability to solve fixated RAT problems, then reducing the fixation caused by inappropriate responses should reduce the correlation between retrieval-induced forgetting and problem solving. We tested this hypothesis by inserting an incubation period between two 30-second problem-solving attempts: half of the participants were given an incubation period (distributed condition), half were not (continuous condition). In the continuous condition retrieval-induced forgetting correlated positively with problem-solving performance during both the initial and final 30 seconds of problem solving. In the distributed condition retrieval-induced forgetting only correlated with problem-solving performance during the first 30 seconds of problem solving. This finding suggests that incubation reduces the need for inhibition by reducing the extent to which problem solvers suffer fixation.     

From A to Z? Retrieval-induced forgetting of non-verbal information indicates how writing systems can shape memory organisation

We investigated retrieval-induced forgetting of motor sequences in samples of Chinese participants. Retrieval-induced forgetting occurs when selective retrieval of a subset of information stored in memory causes forgetting for the non-retrieved rest. This phenomenon critically depends on the organised storage of separate categories of memory representations. In studies with participants from a Western culture (Germany), a categorization in left- and right-hand movements previously had been supported by letter stimuli based on a spatial mental representation of the Roman alphabet. The same assignment of letters from the beginning or end of the alphabet to motor sequences performed either with the left- or the right-hand did not entail retrieval-induced forgetting in the present study, however (Experiment 1). In Experiment 2, visual features of displaying to-be-learned sequences additionally supported a distinction into left and right. In Experiment 3, learning trials provided verbal category labels. The occurrence of retrieval-induced forgetting in the latter two experiments suggests language-dependent organisation of non-verbal items in memory.