Direct and Indirect Measures of Intentional Forgetting in Children and Adults: Evidence for Retrieval Inhibition and Reinstatement

Abstract

In two experiments children in grades 3 and 4 and college students were given an item-by-item cued intentional forgetting task (i.e., instructions were to remember some words and to forget others), either a direct (cued recall word-stem completion) or an indirect (repetition priming word-stem completion) test of memory for the words, and a final free recall test for both remember- and forget-cued words. In both age groups, direct and indirect assessments produced better memory for remember- than for forget-cued words, even in Experiment 2 where the opportunity to selectively rehearse had been reduced by having subjects count aloud with each cue. These results suggest that retrieval inhibition plays a role in item-cued intentional forgetting, albeit one that is similar across ages. Furthermore, again in both age groups, performance on the word-stem completion tasks was enhanced in comparison with an immediate free-recall group, but only for material thought to be irrelevant (the forget-cued words). The facilitation on the priming tasks, however, did not carry over to a final free-recall task. These results on the effects of an intervening experience are discussed in terms of their implications for children's eyewitness testimony.