Selection for encoding: No evidence of better endogenous orienting following forget than following remember instructions.

Abstract

In an item-method directedforgetting task, attentional resources are withdrawn from forget item processing (e.g., Taylor & Fawcett in Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 73, 1790-1814, 2011). Taylor and Hamm (Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 78, 168-186, 2016) demonstrated that there is no corresponding increase in the proclivity for exogenous attention to be captured following a forget instruction. This means either that the attentional resources withdrawn from the forget item are reallocated immediately (and therefore not especially vulnerable to capture) or that it is not exogenous attention thatis withdrawn. Given that endogenous attention is distinct from exogenous attention, we therefore extended the Taylor and Hamm study by using endogenous orientingrather than exogenous orienting. Words appeared individually in a peripheral location (Exp. 1) or ina central location (Exp. 2), followed by an instruction to either remember or forget. After a short (50-ms) or long (250-ms) interstimulus interval (ISI), a central cue (80% accurate) directed participants to allocate their attention to the left or right. This was followed by a discrimination target that appeared at a 1,000-ms cue-target stimulus onset asynchrony. A subsequent yes-no recognition test assessed memory for all study items. In both experiments, we observed better recognition of remember wordsthan forget words-a directedforgetting effect. We also found a cueing effect, revealed as faster reaction times to discriminate cued targetsthan to discriminate uncued targets. There was not, however, an effect of memory instruction (and/or instruction-cue ISI) on the magnitude of this cueing effect. Thus, neither exogenous attentionnor endogenous attention remains in an unengaged state following an instruction to forget.