The benefits of item-method-directed forgetting

ABSTRACT

The present experiments examined the encoding and retrieval conditions in an item-method-directed forget (IMDF) study that included a novel control condition. In the IMDF condition, half of the items were followed by a remember cue whereas the other half were followed by a forget cue. In a remember-both control condition, half of the items were followed by an item identifier called Set A; whereas the other half of the items were followed by a Set B identifier. At the test, items were recalled as a function of the instruction cue or the set identifier. Across two experiments, directed-forgetting effects and associated benefits were found. Further, results from both studies revealed a new way to demonstrate the benefit of IMDF – directed-forgetting participants made more correct source attributions compared to remember-both participants. These benefits were obtained using a within-subjects IMDF paradigm (Experiment 1) as well as a between-subjects IMDF paradigm (Experiment 2). These patterns of results are consistent with several current theories of item-method-directed forgetting.

KEYWORDS:

• Directed forgetting
• costs and benefits
• correct recall
• item categorisation

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Professor Benjamin Strom and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of the manuscript. All participants read and signed a consent form prior to the start of both experiments (Ethics Certificate Number 22875).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In directed forgetting research, costs and benefits have been typically studied using the list-method directed forgetting paradigm. In this method, some participants receive an instruction to remember or forget a previously presented item list and learn the next list whereas others are instructed to learn both lists (Basden et al., 1993). Costs arise because those instructed to forget List 1 items report fewer of them than those instructed to remember items from both lists whereas benefits occur because those instructed to forget List 1 items report more List two items than those asked to remember items from both lists (Sahakyan & Delaney, 2003).

2 Experiment 1 was preregistered with the Center for Open Science (osf.io/b9dcq) and the data from both studies uploaded to OSF.

3 Intrusions (items not presented at study) occurred infrequently for participants in both conditions. The mean number of intrusions ranged from 1.63 for directed-forgetting participants to 1.67 for remember-both participants. Overall, only six participants in each condition reported intrusions in their recall. Intrusions were not included in any of the analyses reported here.

4 Tukey A was used here rather than the t-tests used in Experiment 1 because between group comparisons were used in Experiment 2 whereas between and within group comparisons were made in Experiment 1.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article .