People sometimes remember to forget: Strategic retrieval from the list before last enables directed forgetting of the most recent information.

Abstract

List-method directed forgetting usually involves asking people to study a list, followed by a cue to forget it, and then studying a second list. Prior work suggests that List 2 encoding is necessary for directed forgetting to occur, but recent studies have found that moving the forget cue from List 1 to List 2 allows people to selectively forget List 2. These results were attributed to an inhibitory mechanism. In four experiments, we aimed to replicate these findings and provide an alternative explanation based on the list-before-the-last paradigm. We propose that in the forget condition, participants may strategically retrieve List 1 in response to the forget cue, contributing to selective forgetting. Previous research suggests that explicit retrieval of earlier-leaned information causes a contextual shift, resulting in forgetting of target information. Verbal reports from Experiments 1 and 2 indicated that participants often covertly select a retrieval strategy to forget the most recent list. In Experiment 3, explicit instructions to retrieve resulted in significant forgetting. Directly manipulating forgetting strategy between participants in Experiment 4 suggested that retrieval may be one of several effective mechanisms to forget recently-encountered information. In the retrieval conditions, the data support our claim that in the absence of explicit postcue encoding, people can strategically retrieve earlier-learned information to forget. This novel forgetting mechanism is probably also used outside of the laboratory to "roll back" memory for incorrect information. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).