The Disruption and Dissolution of Directed Forgetting: Inhibitory Control of Memory

doi:10.1006/jmla.2000.2706

Journal of Memory and Language

Volume 43, Issue 3, October 2000, Pages 409-430

https://doi.org/10.1006/jmla.2000.2706 Get rights and content

Abstract

In a series of directed-forgetting (DF) experiments it was found that inhibition of a to-be-forgotten (TBF) list could be disrupted by a secondary task and completely abolished by a concurrent memory load during second to-be-remembered (TBR) list learning. Similarly, inhibition was found to be wholly abolished when the TBF and TBR list were strongly associated but not when weakly associated. These findings suggest that inhibition in the DF procedure depends on how powerfully the second TBR list competes in memory with the representation of the TBF list. When the representation of the TBR list is impoverished or when it is too similar to the TBF list then competition is weak and inhibition is as a consequence weak or does not occur at all.

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Cited by (123)

Selective directed forgetting of motor sequences
2021, Acta Psychologica
We examined selective directed forgetting in motor memory using a new variant of a three-list approach, to distinguish between accounts of directed forgetting. Participants consecutively studied three lists (L1, L2, and L3) of four sequential four-finger movements each. After studying L2, participants in the forget group were instructed to selectively forget the just studied four items of L2 but to retain the previously studied four items of L1, whereas the remember group did not receive any forget instruction for L2 but was encouraged to retain the items of both lists. In addition, we switched (switch groups) or repeated the items-enacting hand (no-switch groups) between L2 and L3 for a manipulation of post-forget-cue material competition for L2. A final memory test assessed recall performance for all three lists. Selective directed forgetting (lower L2 recall in the forget group as compared to the remember group) only occurred if the same hand was used for L2 and L3 (high interference between L2 and L3 encoding) whereas no selective directed forgetting occurred if the hand switched between L2 and L3 (low interference between L2 and L3 encoding). These results suggest that an inhibitory mechanism caused (selective) directed-forgetting costs that was triggered when items studied after the forget instruction had the potential to interfere with already stored items (i.e. were to be enacted by the same hand). When subsequently studied items pertained to the other hand no directed-forgetting costs occurred.
Functional connectivity between right-lateralized ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and insula mediates reappraisal's link to memory control
2021, Journal of Affective Disorders
: Memory control (MC) ability is critical for people's mental and physical health. Previous research had conceptually demonstrated that MC ability has close relationship with reappraisal. However, experimental evidence supporting the relationship was limited. Thus, in the present study, we investigated how MC and reappraisal are linked, both in behavior and in the brain.
: The habitual use of reappraisal was assessed by Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, and memory control ability was measured through directed forgetting task. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to test the seed-based functional connectivity in 181 healthy subjects.
: Behavioral results revealed that more frequent reappraisal was associated with an enhanced ability to control negative memories. Resting-state seed-based functional connectivity showed that habitual use of reappraisal was positively related to the strength of functional connectivity between the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) and right insula. Most importantly, this functional connectivity mediated the effect of habitual use of reappraisal on control over negative memories.
: Present results mainly showed the habitual use of reappraisal was related with MC ability in negative items. Future study could further explore the relationship between MC ability of different categories of negative emotional memories and other kinds of ER strategies.
: Our results support the notion that reappraisal provides opportunities for individuals to practice and enhance inhibitory control—a relationship underpinned by connectivity between the right VLPFC and right insula.
Directed Forgetting Affects How We Remember and Judge Other People
2020, Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition
The present study asks whether behaviors of another person can be intentionally forgotten, and whether forgetting affects how that person is evaluated. Participants read about negative and neutral behaviors of a fictional character and were then asked to forget or to keep remembering them. Afterwards, all participants learned of neutral behaviors associated with another character. After a short distractor or a 24-hour delay, implicit and explicit evaluations of both characters and memory for their behaviors were assessed. Implicit evaluations did not differ between the two characters and were insensitive to forget instructions. In comparison to the remember condition, participants who were told to forget recalled fewer of the first character's behaviors, and explicitly judged him as warmer and less dominant. Importantly, memory was negatively correlated with warmth and positively correlated with dominance ratings. The study shows that intentional forgetting can have long-lasting consequences for memory and explicit judgments of others.
List-method directed forgetting after prolonged retention interval: Further challenges to contemporary accounts
2019, Journal of Memory and Language
Numerous studies on list-method directed forgetting (LMDF) have shown that people can voluntarily forget information when cued to do so. But the cognitive mechanism(s) behind this form of forgetting are still subject to debate. The present study focused on two explanations of LMDF: selective rehearsal and mental context change. Experiment 1 addressed the context-change account by comparing the persistence of LMDF with that of context-dependent forgetting. Results showed that LMDF, but not context-dependent forgetting, was lasting, which is inconsistent with the context-change account. Experiments 2 and 3 addressed the selective-rehearsal account by examining whether persistence of LMDF depends on the status of (intentionally vs. incidentally) encoded items and the type of distractor activity (demanding vs. undemanding) between study and test. Results showed that LMDF was lasting for both intentionally and incidentally studied items but was absent after an undemanding distractor task, which disagrees with the selective-rehearsal account. The present findings challenge both the context-change and the selective-rehearsal account as well as a dual-mechanisms view, which assumes a role of both types of mechanisms in LMDF.
Intentional inhibition but not source memory is related to hallucination-proneness and intrusive thoughts in a university sample
2019, Cortex
Citation Excerpt :
Supporting evidence has also come from studies of “directed forgetting”, in which participants are instructed to forget previously learned words or word lists, but then later tested on their recall (Bjork & Woodward, 1973; Geiselman, Bjork, & Fishman, 1983). While healthy participants typically show a directed forgetting effect (i.e., reduced recall for words in “forget” versus “remember” lists; Conway, Harries, Noyes, Racsmany, & Frankish, 2000), participants with schizophrenia forget fewer words (Racsmány et al., 2008) and this correlates with hallucination severity in patients with AH (Soriano, Jiménez, Román, & Bajo, 2009). Findings such as these have been used to argue for inhibition playing an important role in understanding hallucinations more generally, both clinically (across various modalities and diagnoses), and as a marker for hallucination susceptibility in the general population (Badcock & Hugdahl, 2014; Ford et al., 2014; Jardri et al., 2016).
Proneness to unusual perceptual states – such as auditory or visual hallucinations – has been proposed to exist on a continuum in the general population, but whether there is a cognitive basis for such a continuum remains unclear. Intentional cognitive inhibition (the ability to wilfully control thoughts and memories) is one mechanism that has been linked to auditory hallucination susceptibility, but most evidence to date has been drawn from clinical samples only. Moreover, such a link has yet to be demonstrated over and above relations to other cognitive skills (source monitoring) and cognitive states (intrusive thoughts) that often correlate with both inhibition and hallucinations. The present study deployed two tests of intentional inhibition ability – the Inhibition of Currently Irrelevant Memories (ICIM) task and Directed Forgetting (DF) task – and one test of source monitoring (a source memory task) to examine how cognitive task performance relates to self-reported i) auditory hallucination-proneness and ii) susceptibility to intrusive thoughts in a non-clinical student sample (N = 76). Hierarchical regression analyses were used to assess the independent and combined contributions of task performance to proneness scores. ICIM performance but not DF or source memory scores were significantly related to both hallucination-proneness and intrusive thoughts. Further analysis suggested that intrusive thoughts may mediate the link between intentional inhibition skills and auditory hallucination-proneness, suggesting a potential pathway from inhibition to perception via intrusions in cognition. The implications for studying cognitive mechanisms of hallucination and their role in “continuum” views of psychosis-like experiences are discussed.
The role of memory traces quality in directed forgetting: A comparison of young and older participants using the list procedure
2023, Annee Psychologique

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^☆: This research was supported by an ESRC training award, R00429634177, to Kay Harries and by the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Bristol. The authors thank both institutions for their support. We also thank Bob Bjork for discussion of, and helpful revision to, this article.

^☆☆: Address correspondence and reprint requests to Martin A. Conway, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Bristol, 8 Woodland Road, Bristol, BS8 1TN England. Fax: +117 928 8588. E-mail: [email protected].

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Regular ArticleThe Disruption and Dissolution of Directed Forgetting: Inhibitory Control of Memory☆,☆☆

Abstract

Consciousness & Cognition

Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour

Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour

Mechanisms of inhibition in long-term memory: A new taxonomy

Integration as a general boundary condition on retrieval-induced forgetting

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition

On the status of inhibitory mechanisms in cognition: Memory retrieval as a model case

Psychological Review

Retrieval inhibition as an adaptive mechanism in human memory

Varieties of goal-directed forgetting

Is retrievability grouping good for recall?

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

Intrusive autobiographical memories in depression and post-traumatic stress disorder

Applied Cognitive Psychology

A structural model of autobiographical memory

Autobiographical memories and autobiographical knowledge

Past and present: Recovered memories and false memories

Phenomenological records and the self-memory system

Recollections of true and false autobiographical memories

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

Changes in memory awareness during learning: The acquisition of knowledge by psychology undergraduates

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

The construction of autobiographical memories in the Self Memory System

Psychological Review

Principles of learning and memory

Maintenance of intrusive memories in post traumatic stress disorder: A cognitive approach

Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy

Maintenance rehearsal affects knowing not remembering: Elaborative rehearsal effects remembering not knowing

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

Disrupted retrieval in directed forgetting: A link with posthypnotic amnesia

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

Regular Article
The Disruption and Dissolution of Directed Forgetting: Inhibitory Control of Memory☆,☆☆