Chapter Four - List-Method Directed Forgetting in Cognitive and Clinical Research: A Theoretical and Methodological Review

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Abstract

The primary purpose of this chapter is to provide an up-to-date review of the twenty-first century research and theory on list-method directed forgetting (DF) and related phenomena like the context-change effect. Many researchers have assumed that DF is diagnostic of inhibition, but we argue for an alternative, noninhibitory account and suggest reinterpretation of earlier findings. We first describe what DF is and the state of the art with regard to measuring the effect. Then, we review recent evidence that brings DF into the family of effects that can be explained by global memory models. The process-based theory we advocate is that the DF impairment arises from mental context change and that the DF benefits emerge mainly but perhaps not exclusively from changes in encoding strategy. We review evidence (some new to this paper) that strongly suggests that DF arises from the engagement of controlled forgetting strategies that are independent of whether people believed the forget cue or not. Then we describe the vast body of literature supporting that forgetting strategies result in contextual change effects, as well as point out some inconsistencies in the DF literature that need to be addressed in future research. Next, we provide evidence—again, some of it new to this chapter—that the reason people show better memory after a forget cue is that they change encoding strategies. In addition to reviewing the basic research with healthy population, we reinterpret the evidence from the literature on certain clinical populations, providing a critique of the work done to date and outlining ways of improving the methodology for the study of DF in special populations. We conclude with a critical discussion of alternative approaches to understanding DF.

Introduction

Forgetting is often a passive process that happens regardless of our conscious intentions. However, this is not always the case; forgetting sometimes is an active process of intentionally engaging strategies that reduce memory for material that interferes with one’s current goals. To this end, forgetting can be an adaptive process. For example, to use software that has been recently updated, the user must forget the prior ways of doing things to avoid errors. Similarly, we are often told “never mind, forget what I just said” following exposure to erroneous information.

Intentional forgetting has been studied extensively in the laboratory via directed forgetting (DF) manipulations, which produce impaired memory for material following an instruction to try to forget. In DF studies, participants study some information and are subsequently told to forget certain portions of it. The list-method instructs people to forget an entire list of earlier studied items, whereas the item-method instructs people to forget or remember on item-by-item basis. Both methods demonstrate forgetting of unwanted information on demand, although the way by which forgetting is accomplished differs between procedures.

This chapter primarily centers on list-method DF, partly because the mechanisms proposed to explain it have been a topic of active debate in the recent decade, and partly because the presumed connection with inhibitory processes has made the paradigm an attractive diagnostic tool for investigating clinical and special populations. We provide an up-to-date review of DF and related phenomena (e.g. the context-change paradigm) with a focus on studies conducted since 2000. There is already an excellent edited volume describing twentieth century DF research (Golding & MacLeod, 1998).

We will begin by describing methodological issues in list-method DF. The designs used to study DF in cognitive research have evolved to keep pace with theoretical and methodological developments, and so we will review the difficulties posed by earlier designs and suggest better-controlled procedures. We will then outline our broad theory of DF and describe the large number of studies supporting that broad theory, as well as areas of current controversy in DF. Even researchers who are familiar with our previous manifestos on this topic may find this section interesting, as our view has evolved and expanded even since 2010, and because we will present previously unpublished data that bear on a number of issues. Finally, we will explore how the theory can inform studies of individual differences, especially in clinical populations, and make recommendations for conducting such studies.

Section snippets

Basic Design Issues

DF is generally assessed in terms of two separate components of the effect: the costs and the benefits. To understand these terms, we first need to explain how most DF studies are set up, and then we will explain the usual findings.

The most frequently used design is the two-list design, which presents two lists of items (usually words) to study for a later memory test. The first list we will call L1 and the second list we will call L2. Following L1, a cue is presented either to keep remembering

Older Ideas about the Causes of DF

The earliest theory of DF was the selective rehearsal account (e.g. Bjork, 1970, Bjork, 1972), which was proposed at the time when not much was known about the distinction between the list-method and item-method DF. According to this view, the costs arise because participants stop rehearsing to-be-forgotten items in response to the forget cue, and they devote their rehearsal and mnemonic activity more effectively to to-be-remembered items, producing the benefits. This works well in explaining

Forgetting is a Strategic Decision

In a series of studies from our lab, we have explored what people do in response to the forget cue. Specifically, we have accumulated a wealth of information regarding how participants interpret and comply with forget instructions. People may think that they already have forgotten, and therefore fail to deploy any strategy to forget. Likewise, they may not know what kind of strategy to deploy in order to forget, and therefore do nothing. Such results are important not only for demonstrating

Context Change as an Explanation for DF Impairment

Once forgetting is strategically initiated, we believe that it takes place because of changes in mental context—an explanation first proposed by Sahakyan and Kelley (2002). Our thinking was greatly influenced by formal models of episodic memory, according to which people encode both the content of the item during learning and various contextual features or attributes that are present in the background (e.g. Anderson & Bower, 1972; Estes, 1955; Gillund & Shiffrin, 1984; Hintzman, 1988; Howard &

Areas of Disagreement Across Studies

While reviewing the empirical findings, two broad areas of inconsistencies emerged as in need of further investigation and more careful analyses. These include L1 serial position findings, and the source misattribution and intrusion error findings.

Strategy Change Explains DF Benefits

Sahakyan and Delaney (2003) were the first to propose that the costs and benefits of DF might be dissociable, and that they might be explained by different mechanisms. A critical piece of evidence for their proposal was that it is possible to dissociate the costs and benefits (e.g. Benjamin, 2006; Conway et al., 2000; Joslyn & Oakes, 2005; Pastötter et al., 2012; Sahakyan and Delaney, 2005, Sahakyan and Delaney, 2010; Shapiro et al., 2006; Spillers & Unsworth, 2011; Zellner & Bäuml, 2006). How

Implications for Clinical Populations

People with clinical disorders sometimes behave atypically on cognitive tasks. Demonstrations that clinical disorders alter behavior in cognitive tasks are useful because they can improve diagnosis (if the difference is sufficiently robust), differentiate subtypes of disorders, and clarify what functions are impaired in clinical populations. Cognitive difficulties can suggest treatments that may remediate symptoms, or predict the kinds of everyday problems that people may have. Of course, it is

Concluding Thoughts

Obtaining DF requires engaging in controlled strategies, and the decision to engage in those strategies may be mediated by beliefs about one’s memory abilities or whether it is possible to intentionally forget. These findings highlight the importance of attending to participants’ behavior and beliefs in understanding why memory phenomena occur. The costs and the benefits of DF can be observed or not depending on what participants choose to do. A closer attention to participant strategies is

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Colleen Kelley, Colin MacLeod, and Tanya Jonker for their feedback and constructive comments on the earlier draft of this chapter.

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