Explaining the forgetting bias effect on value judgments: The influence of memory for a past test

People often feel that information that was forgotten is less important than remembered information. Prior work has shown that participants assign higher importance to remembered information while undervaluing forgotten information. The current study examined two possible accounts of this finding. In three experiments, participants studied lists of words in which each word was randomly assigned a point value denoting the value of remembering the word. Following the presentation of each list participants engaged in a free recall test. After the presentation of all lists participants were shown each of the words they had studied and asked to recall the point value that was initially paired with each word. Experiment 1 tested a fluency-based account by presenting items for value judgments in a low-fluency or high-fluency format. Experiment 2 examined whether value judgments reflect attributions based on the familiarity of an item when value judgments are made. Finally, in Experiment 3, we evaluated whether participants believe that forgotten words are less important by having them judge whether an item was initially recalled or forgotten prior to making a value judgment. Manipulating the fluency of an item presented for judgment had no influence on value ratings (Experiment 1) and familiarity exerted a limited influence on value judgments (Experiment 2). More importantly, participants’ value judgments appeared to reflect a theory that remembered information is more valuable than forgotten information (Experiment 3). Overall, the present work suggests that individuals may apply a theory about remembering and forgetting to retrospectively assess the value of information.     

Segregation of study items in memory determines the magnitude and direction of directed forgetting

When words at study are divided into to‐be‐remembered and to‐be‐forgotten ones, people recall more of the former than of the latter in a surprise memory test for all words. In this study, we also tapped memory for word identity at study (forget or remember) by asking participants to reproduce in memory selected portions of the original words. We found word identity to be parasitic on word reproduction. As a result, there is a noted tendency to recall forget‐words from study as remember‐words in the memory test more than vice versa.     

Retrieval dynamics in false recall: revelations from identifiability manipulations

The present study analyzed the retrieval dynamics of false recall, using an externalized free-recall task after participants studied Deese/Roediger–McDermott lists with high- and low-identifiable critical words. In Experiment 1, the memory test required participants to write down the words they remembered as having been presented in each list (recall output) plus any related words that came to mind (inclusion output). The results of the inclusion output showed that highly identifiable critical items were more frequently generated than less identifiable critical items, suggesting that highly identifiable critical words were more accessible in a first phase of retrieval. At the same time, the results of the recall output showed that highly identifiable critical items were less often falsely recalled than low-identifiable critical items, a replication of previous findings. In Experiment 2, self-reports corroborated that participants were using an editing strategy based on the identification and exclusion of critical words—that is, the identify-to-reject strategy. These results help us to more fully understand the identifiability effect and, beyond that, emphasize the importance of considering the intervening of dual processes of accessibility and error correction as a crucial feature in theoretical explanations of false memories.     

Reversed mnemic neglect of self-threatening memories in dysphoria

Previous research has suggested that people have difficulties remembering information which is threatening to the self—an effect known as mnemic neglect. Three experiments are presented that examined mnemic neglect in dysphoria and whether dysphoric individuals show enhanced memory for self-threatening information. Pilot work determined that dysphoric participants rated central negative traits as more important than nondysphoric participants. In Experiment 1, dysphoric participants were found to have better memory for self-threatening information than nondysphoric participants. Enhanced recall of self-threatening memories was also found for unmodifiable (Experiment 2), and highly diagnostic (Experiment 3) self-threatening traits. The findings suggest that dysphoric participants show reversed mnemic neglect effects indicating enhanced access to negative information relating to the self.     

Metacognitive illusions can be reduced by monitoring recollection during study

Prior work has shown that judgments of learning (JOLs) are prone to an auditory metacognitive illusion such that loud words are given higher predictions than quiet words despite no differences in recall as a function of auditory intensity. The current study investigated whether judgments of remembering and knowing (JORKs)—judgments that focus participants on whether or not recollective details will be remembered—are less susceptible to such an illusion. In Experiment 1, participants studied single words, making item-by-item JOLs or JORKs immediately after study. Indeed, although increased volume elevated judgement magnitude for both JOLs and JORKs, the effect was significantly attenuated when JORKs were elicited. Experiment 2 replicated this finding and additionally demonstrated that participants making JORKs were less likely than participants making JOLs to choose to restudy quiet words relative to loud words. Taken together, these results suggest that JORKs are impacted less—in terms of both metacognitive monitoring and control—by irrelevant perceptual information than JOLs. More generally, these data support the contention that metacognitive illusions can be attenuated by simply changing the way metacognitive judgments are solicited, an important finding given that subjective experiences guide self-regulated learning.     

Reversed mnemic neglect of self-threatening memories in dysphoria

Previous research has suggested that people have difficulties remembering information which is threatening to the self--an effect known as mnemic neglect. Three experiments are presented that examined mnemic neglect in dysphoria and whether dysphoric individuals show enhanced memory for self-threatening information. Pilot work determined that dysphoric participants rated central negative traits as more important than nondysphoric participants. In Experiment 1, dysphoric participants were found to have better memory for self-threatening information than nondysphoric participants. Enhanced recall of self-threatening memories was also found for unmodifiable (Experiment 2), and highly diagnostic (Experiment 3) self-threatening traits. The findings suggest that dysphoric participants show reversed mnemic neglect effects indicating enhanced access to negative information relating to the self.     

Cognitive load hypothesis of item-method directed forgetting

This study examined the effect of the processing demands of to-be-remembered (TBR) words on item-method directed forgetting. Experiment 1 found that a standard memory group remembered fewer to-be-forgotten (TBF) words than a naming group, in which participants simply named the TBR words during the study phase, even though both groups were equally instructed to forget the TBF words. Experiment 2 manipulated the number of TBR words in the study list, keeping the number of TBF words constant, and found that TBF word forgetting was more difficult in the few TBR words condition than the more TBR words condition. The same pattern was found in the result of Experiment 3 when a cued recall test, instead of a free recall test, was used. In all the experiments, participants were asked to recall the TBF words before the TBR words. These findings are consistent with the cognitive load hypothesis that it is easier to forget when there are fewer cognitive resources available during encoding.     

Cognitive load hypothesis of item-method directed forgetting

This study examined the effect of the processing demands of to-be-remembered (TBR) words on item-method directed forgetting. Experiment 1 found that a standard memory group remembered fewer to-be-forgotten (TBF) words than a naming group, in which participants simply named the TBR words during the study phase, even though both groups were equally instructed to forget the TBF words. Experiment 2 manipulated the number of TBR words in the study list, keeping the number of TBF words constant, and found that TBF word forgetting was more difficult in the few TBR words condition than the more TBR words condition. The same pattern was found in the result of Experiment 3 when a cued recall test, instead of a free recall test, was used. In all the experiments, participants were asked to recall the TBF words before the TBR words. These findings are consistent with the cognitive load hypothesis that it is easier to forget when there are fewer cognitive resources available during encoding.     

Anticipated,experienced, and remembered subjective effort and discomfort on sustained attention versus working memory tasks

This study examined individuals’ ability to accurately anticipate how cognitively effortful and uncomfortable a task will feel based on a short sample of the task. Participants completed a sustained attention or working memory task. Post-practice, participants rated the effort and discomfort that they anticipated their task would require and engender, respectively. Participants also rated their effort and discomfort during task-administration and the effort and discomfort they recalled feeling after task-administration. Sustained attention task participants anticipated significantly less effort than working memory task participants. Sustained attention task participants felt significantly more effort during the task and remembered feeling more effort than they had anticipated. Working memory task participants felt significantly less effort during the task than they had anticipated. Sustained attention task participants anticipated, experienced, and recalled feeling more discomfort than working memory task participants. Individuals’ anticipation of effort required depends on the task and is different from the effort they actually feel during the task and later recall feeling.     

Are you sure you forgot? Feeling of knowing in directed forgetting.

One significant issue in metamemory is how variables increasing memorability affect metamemory. Previous research has produced inconsistent results. The effect of directed forgetting on the magnitude and accuracy of feeling-of-knowing (FOK) judgments was investigated. Participants were presented with word pairs, some to be remembered and some to be forgotten, and then were asked to recall all target words regardless of initial instructions. For unrecalled items, they were asked to give FOK judgments about performance in a future memory task: a cued stem-completion task (Experiment 1) or a recognition test (Experiment 2). This encoding manipulation increased both the memory performance and the magnitude of FOK judgments. However, no such effect on the accuracy of FOK judgments was observed.     

Being forgotten: implications for the experience of meaning in life

Two studies investigated the effects of being forgotten on the target of memory. In Study 1, undergraduate women (N = 96) who had completed a lab session two days prior, were randomly assigned to be remembered, forgotten, complimented, or to a control group. In the absence of effects on mood or social self-esteem, being forgotten resulted in lower meaning in life. In Study 2, participants (N = 47) who had completed a group exercise were informed two days later that no one remembered them, that everyone remembered them, or that no one wanted to work with them. Being forgotten led to lower meaning in life than being remembered but did not differ from being excluded. Being forgotten may be considered a type of incipient ostracism that influences meaning in life but not mood or state social self-esteem.     

Betting on memory leads to metacognitive improvement by younger and older adults

The present study examined how younger and older adults choose to selectively remember important information. Participants studied words paired with point values, and "bet" on whether they could later recall each word. If they bet on and recalled the word, they received the points, but if they failed to recall it, they lost those points. Participants (especially older adults) initially bet on more words than they later recalled, but greatly improved with task experience. The incorporation of rewards and penalties associated with metacognitive predictions, and multiple study-test trials, revealed that both younger and older adults can learn to maximize performance.     

Priming guesses on a forced-recall test

The forced-recall paradigm requires participants to fill all spaces on the memory test even if they cannot remember all the list words. In the present study, the authors used that paradigm to examine the influence of implicit memory on guessing--when participants fill remaining spaces after they cannot remember list items. They measured explicit memory as the percentage of targets that participants designated as remembered from the list and implicit memory as the percentage of targets they wrote but did not designate as remembered (beyond chance level). The authors examined implicit memory on guessing with forced recall (Experiment 1), forced cued recall with younger and older adults (Experiment 2), and forced free and cued recall under a depth-of-processing manipulation (Experiment 3). They conclude that implicit memory influences guesses of targets in the forced-recall paradigm.     

Adaptive memory: Animacy effects persist in paired-associate learning

Recent evidence suggests that animate stimuli are remembered better than matched inanimate stimuli. Two experiments tested whether this animacy effect persists in paired-associate learning of foreign words. Experiment 1 randomly paired Swahili words with matched animate and inanimate English words. Participants were told simply to learn the English “translations” for a later test. Replicating earlier findings using free recall, a strong animacy advantage was found in this cued-recall task. Concerned that the effect might be due to enhanced accessibility of the individual responses (e.g., animates represent a more accessible category), Experiment 2 selected animate and inanimate English words from two more constrained categories (four-legged animals and furniture). Once again, an advantage was found for pairs using animate targets. These results argue against organisational accounts of the animacy effect and potentially have implications for foreign language vocabulary learning.     

Does the testing effect depend on presentation modality?

We examined whether the testing effect generalizes to an auditory presentation modality. Five lists of unrelated words (Experiment 1) and related words (Experiment 2) were presented to participants, half of whom studied them visually and half studied them auditorily. Participants in the study-only condition performed a short distractor task following lists 1–4, whereas those in the testing condition completed a short distractor task and then attempted to recall each list. Both groups were subsequently tested on List 5 and on all five lists 30 min later. In both experiments, we found a testing effect for both List 5 and for the final cumulative recall test. However, the effect did not interact with study modality, despite the fact that proactive interference was greater following auditory study. These results have important implications for educational practice, suggesting that initial testing is important for materials presented in auditory as well as visual formats.     

Metacognitive illusions for auditory information: Effects on monitoring and control

Prior work has demonstrated that the perceptual features of visually presented stimuli can have a strong influence on predictions of memory performance, even when those features are unrelated to recall (Rhodes & Castel, 2008). The present study examined whether this finding would hold in an auditory domain and influence study-choice allocation. Participants listened to words that varied in volume, made judgments of learning (JOLs) for each item, and were then administered a test of free recall. In Experiment 1, we showed that JOLs were influenced by volume, with loud words given higher JOLs than quiet words, and that volume had no influence on recall, illustrating a metacognitive illusion based on auditory information. In Experiment 2, we extended these findings to control processes and showed that participants were more likely to choose to restudy quiet words than loud words. These findings indicate that highly accessible auditory information is integrated into JOLs and restudy choices, even when this information does not influence actual memory performance.     

False and veridical collaborative recognition

Participants who witness an event and later receive post-event information that omits a critical scene are less likely to recall and to recognise that scene than are participants who receive no post-event information (Wright, Loftus, & Hall, 2001). The present study used the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm, in which participants study lists of semantic associates (e.g., hot, snow, warm, winter) that commonly elicit false memories of critical non-presented words (e.g., cold), to determine whether omitting information from a second presentation decreases memory for both presented and non-presented information. Participants were presented with a list of the semantic associates of six non-presented words. For half the participants, this list was presented a second time with the semantic associates of one of the non-presented words omitted. As expected, participants were less likely to recall and to recognise the presented words when they had been omitted from the second presentation. Omission also decreased the rate at which non-presented words were recalled, although false recognition of these words was not reduced. These results suggest that false recognition may be particularly difficult to attenuate and that post-event omission may be more detrimental to memory accuracy than previously thought.     

I owe you: age-related similarities and differences in associative memory for gains and losses

Older adults often experience associative memory impairments but can sometimes remember important information. The current experiments investigate potential age-related similarities and differences associate memory for gains and losses. Younger and older participants were presented with faces and associated dollar amounts, which indicated how much money the person “owed” the participant, and were later given a cued recall test for the dollar amount. Experiment 1 examined face-dollar amount pairs while Experiment 2 included negative dollar amounts to examine both gains and losses. While younger adults recalled more information relative to older adults, both groups were more accurate in recalling the correct value associated with high-value faces compared to lower-value faces and remembered gist-information about the values. However, negative values (losses) did not have a strong impact on recall among older adults versus younger adults, illustrating important associative memory differences between younger and older adults.     

Omitting details from post-event information: are true and false memory affected in the same way?

Participants who witness an event and later receive post-event information that omits a critical scene are less likely to recall and to recognise that scene than are participants who receive no post-event information (Wright, Loftus, & Hall, 2001). The present study used the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm, in which participants study lists of semantic associates (e.g., hot, snow, warm, winter) that commonly elicit false memories of critical non-presented words (e.g., cold), to determine whether omitting information from a second presentation decreases memory for both presented and non-presented information. Participants were presented with a list of the semantic associates of six non-presented words. For half the participants, this list was presented a second time with the semantic associates of one of the non-presented words omitted. As expected, participants were less likely to recall and to recognise the presented words when they had been omitted from the second presentation. Omission also decreased the rate at which non-presented words were recalled, although false recognition of these words was not reduced. These results suggest that false recognition may be particularly difficult to attenuate and that post-event omission may be more detrimental to memory accuracy than previously thought.     

定向遗忘中提取抑制的机制：成功提取引起抑制

两个实验采用无关材料考察了字表方式下提取诱发遗忘解释定向遗忘中提取抑制的可能性。在实验中,学习完两个字表后,对字表2 进行不同次数（0、1、3次）的提取练习以考察是否会增强定向遗忘效应以及定向遗忘效应是否随着提取练习次数的增加而增强。实验一中,字表2提取练习是要求被试回忆字表2项目,不给予线索提示。在实验二中,采用词干补笔测验的形式对字表2进行提取练习,词干补笔测验保证了对字表2项目的成功提取。研究结果发现,只有在实验二中对字表2的成功提取练习增强了定向遗忘效应,从而表明成功提取可以解释定向遗忘中的提取抑制