Abstract
People can purposefully forget information that has become irrelevant, as is demonstrated in list-method directed forgetting (LMDF). In this task, participants are cued to intentionally forget an already studied list (list 1) before encoding a second list (list 2); this induces forgetting of the first-list items. Most research on LMDF has been conducted with short retention intervals, but very recent studies indicate that such directed forgetting can be lasting. We examined in two experiments whether core findings in the LMDF literature generalize from short to long retention intervals. The focus of Experiment 1 was on the previous finding that, with short retention interval, list-2 encoding is necessary for list-1 forgetting to arise. Experiment 1 replicated the finding after a short delay of 3 min between study and test and extended it to a longer delay of 20 min. The focus of Experiment 1 was on the absence of list-1 forgetting in item recognition, previously observed after short retention interval. Experiment 1 replicated the finding after a short delay of 3 min between study and test and extended it to longer delays of 20 min and 24 h. Implications of the results for theoretical explanations of LMDF are discussed.
Highlights
Most of us have stories to tell about situations in which we forgot something quite essential
Our goal was to examine if core findings on list-method directed forgetting (LMDF) after short delay can be generalized to longer retention intervals
The present study focused on two core findings in the LMDF literature and examined whether they generalize from short to long retention intervals
Summary
Most of us have stories to tell about situations in which we forgot something quite essential (e.g., the birthday of a loved one, an important deadline, or the correct answer to some test question). Our goal was to examine if core findings on LMDF after short delay can be generalized to longer retention intervals Because this questions holds direct relevance for theoretical accounts of LMDF, gaining an answer may help to better understand the mechanism(s) underlying list-1 forgetting. The supposed difference in rehearsal activities can explain the later difference in recall of list 1 Another prominent account is retrieval inhibition (Geiselman, Bjork, & Fishman, 1983). List-1 forgetting has been attributed to context change (Sahakyan & Kelley, 2002) This account suggests that the forget cue triggers a deliberate switch of mental context, such that mental context at test no longer matches the context present during study of list 1, thereby reducing recall of the first-list items
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