Oh, Honey, I Already Forgot That : Strategic Control of Directed Forgetting in Older and Younger Adults*
TL;DR: Two experiments investigated list-method directed forgetting with older and younger adults and showed that age-related differences in directed forgetting occurred because older adults were less likely than younger adults to initiate a strategy to attempt to forget.
Abstract: This article is about age-related differences in intentional forgetting of unwanted information. Imagine receiving medication and reading the directions on how to take it. Afterwards, the doctor tells you to take a different dosage at a different time from that printed on the label. Updating the directions may necessitate intentional forgetting of the earlier-learned information. The current article took one approach to examining this issue by examining age differences in the effectiveness of intentional forgetting using the popular list-method directed forgetting procedure invented by R. A. Bjork, LaBerge, and LeGrand (1968).
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TL;DR: The findings suggest that two separate factors can contribute to list 2 enhancement: one (encoding) factor that is restricted to early list 2 items and does not depend on list output order, and another (retrieval) factors that pertains to all list 2Items and varies with the two lists’ output order.
Abstract: In list-method directed forgetting, people are cued to forget a previously studied item list and to learn a new list instead Such cuing typically leads to forgetting of the first list and to memory enhancement of the second, referred to as list 1 forgetting and list 2 enhancement In the present study, two experiments are reported that examined influences of items’ serial learning position in a list and the two lists’ output order on list-method directed forgetting The results show that list output order influences list 2 enhancement but not list 1 forgetting The enhancement was higher when list 2 was recalled first than when list 1 was recalled first and, in both cases, was higher for early list 2 items than for middle and late list 2 items In contrast, the forgetting was equally present for all list 1 items and did not depend on the two lists’ output order The findings suggest that two separate factors can contribute to list 2 enhancement: one (encoding) factor that is restricted to early list 2 items and does not depend on list output order, and another (retrieval) factor that pertains to all list 2 items and varies with the two lists’ output order A new two-mechanism account of directed forgetting is suggested that reconciles previous (encoding or retrieval) views on list 2 enhancement
57 citations
01 Jan 2012
54 citations
Cites background from "Oh, Honey, I Already Forgot That : ..."
...More recently, Sahakyan, Delaney, and Goodmon (2008) found that both younger and older adults could selectively forget the no longer relevant “forget” information....
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TL;DR: Older adults show hyper- (or excessive) binding effects for simultaneously and sequentially presented distraction and may be tied to the greater tendency of older adults to maintain access to recently attended information, inadvertently forming broader associations across time, than is the case for younger adults.
Abstract: Older adults show hyper- (or excessive) binding effects for simultaneously and sequentially presented distraction. Here, we addressed the potential role of hyper-binding in paired-associate learning. Older and younger adults learned a list of word pairs and then received an associative recognition task in which rearranged pairs were formed from items that had originally occurred either close together or far apart in the study list. Across 3 experiments, older adults made more false alarms to near re-pairings than to far re-pairings. Younger adults, on the other hand, showed no difference in false alarms to the 2 types of rearranged pairs. These findings may be tied to the greater tendency of older adults to maintain access to recently attended information, inadvertently forming broader associations across time, than is the case for younger adults.
48 citations
TL;DR: Sleep does not benefit the forgetting of unwanted memories but, on the contrary, REM sleep might even counteract the voluntary suppression of memories making them more accessible for retrieval.
Abstract: The concept of 'repression' dates back to Freud, assuming that undesirable memories can become suppressed and that dreams ease repression by permitting these memories to be reinstated. Here, we followed this idea adopting the 'directed forgetting' approach of experimental psychology. The voluntary suppression of unwanted memories results in impaired later retrieval. Because sleep is known to benefit consolidation of newly learned materials, including cognitive skills, we hypothesized that memory suppression would be enhanced by sleep, and perhaps particularly by rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, which is associated more often with dream reports. Subjects (n=42) learned a list of word-pairs and, subsequently, the first (cue) words of the pairs were presented again; for half these words subjects had to recall respective second words (response pairs) and for the other half they had to keep respective second words out of mind (suppression pairs). Retrieval of both response and suppression pairs was tested after 8h of sleep or wakefulness (main experiment) or after 3-h periods of early slow wave sleep (SWS)-rich or late REM-rich sleep (supplementary experiment). Response pairs were generally recalled better after sleep than wakefulness (P<0.05). Recall of suppression pairs was, as expected, worse than of response pairs. Contrary to our hypothesis, memory for suppression pairs was not affected differentially by sleep. In the supplementary experiment, compared to SWS-rich sleep, REM-rich sleep even improved recall of suppression pairs (P<0.05). Thus, sleep does not benefit the forgetting of unwanted memories but, on the contrary, REM sleep might even counteract the voluntary suppression of memories making them more accessible for retrieval.
46 citations
Cites background from "Oh, Honey, I Already Forgot That : ..."
...It could be also argued that, as a strategy to forget suppression pairs, subjects implemented diversionary thoughts in response to these pairs in the think ⁄no-think phase, thus producing interference (Sahakyan et al., 2008)....
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TL;DR: The data suggest that the cognitive functioning necessary to suppress information from memory is present in older adulthood, and that both emotional and neutral information can be successfully suppressed from memory.
Abstract: Recent studies have demonstrated that young adults can voluntarily suppress information from memory when directed to. After learning novel word pairings to criterion, participants are shown individual words and instructed either to “think” about the associated word, or to put it out of mind entirely (“no-think”). When given a surprise cued recall test, participants typically show impaired recall for “no-think” words relative to “think” or “control” (un-manipulated) words. The present study investigated whether this controlled suppression effect persists in an aged population, and examined how the emotionality of the to-be-suppressed word affects suppression ability. Data from four experiments using the think/no-think task demonstrate that older and younger adults can suppress information when directed to (Experiment 1), and the age groups do not differ significantly in this ability. Experiments 2 through 4 demonstrate that both age groups can suppress words that are emotional (positive or negative valence) or neutral. The suppression effect also persists even if participants are tested using independent probe words that are semantically related to the target words but were not the studied cue words (Experiments 3 and 4). These data suggest that the cognitive functioning necessary to suppress information from memory is present in older adulthood, and that both emotional and neutral information can be successfully suppressed from memory.
39 citations
References
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TL;DR: The role of stereotype vulnerability in the standardized test performance of ability-stigmatized groups is discussed and mere salience of the stereotype could impair Blacks' performance even when the test was not ability diagnostic.
Abstract: Stereotype threat is being at risk of confirming, as self-characte ristic, a negative stereotype about one's group. Studies 1 and 2 varied the stereotype vulnerability of Black participants taking a difficult verbal test by varying whether or not their performance was ostensibly diagnostic of ability, and thus, whether or not they were at risk of fulfilling the racial stereotype about their intellectual ability. Reflecting the pressure of this vulnerability, Blacks underperformed in relation to Whites in the ability-diagnostic condition but not in the nondiagnostic condition (with Scholastic Aptitude Tests controlled). Study 3 validated that ability-diagnosticity cognitively activated the racial stereotype in these participants and motivated them not to conform to it, or to be judged by it. Study 4 showed that mere salience of the stereotype could impair Blacks' performance even when the test was not ability diagnostic. The role of stereotype vulnerability in the standardized test performance of ability-stigmatized groups is discussed. Not long ago, in explaining his career-long preoccupation with the American Jewish experience, the novelist Philip Roth said that it was not Jewish culture or religion per se that fascinated him, it was what he called the Jewish "predicament." This is an apt term for the perspective taken in the present research. It focuses on a social-psychological predicament that can arise from widely-known negative stereotypes about one's group. It is this: the existence of such a stereotype means that anything one does or any of one's features that conform to it make the stereotype more plausible as a self-characterization in the eyes of others, and perhaps even in one's own eyes. We call this predicament stereotype threat and argue that it is experienced, essentially, as a self-evaluative threat. In form, it is a predicament that can beset the members of any group about whom negative stereotypes exist. Consider the stereotypes elicited by the terms yuppie, feminist, liberal, or White male. Their prevalence in society raises the possibility for potential targets that the stereotype is true of them and, also, that other people will see them that way. When the allegations of the stereotype are importantly
7,282 citations
"Oh, Honey, I Already Forgot That : ..." refers background in this paper
...Activating negative stereotypes impairs performance on other cognitive tasks (e.g., Steele & Aronson, 1995; Rahhal et al., 2001)....
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Book•
03 Jul 2010
TL;DR: The Psychology of Learning and Motivation (PLM) series as mentioned in this paper is a collection of contributions in cognitive and experimental psychology, ranging from classical and instrumental conditioning to complex learning and problem solving.
Abstract: Psychology of Learning and Motivation publishes empirical and theoretical contributions in cognitive and experimental psychology, ranging from classical and instrumental conditioning to complex learning and problem solving. Each chapter thoughtfully integrates the writings of leading contributors, who present and discuss significant bodies of research relevant to their discipline. Volume 62 includes chapters on such varied topics as automatic logic and effortful beliefs, complex learning and development, bias detection and heuristics thinking, perceiving scale in real and virtual environments, using multidimensional encoding and retrieval contexts to enhance our understanding of source memory, causes and consequences of forgetting in thinking and remembering and people as contexts in conversation. * Volume 62 of the highly regarded Psychology of Learning and Motivation series* An essential reference for researchers and academics in cognitive science* Relevant to both applied concerns and basic research
3,864 citations
TL;DR: This chapter discusses the theoretical and empirical literature that addresses aging and discourse comprehension and a series of five studies guided by a particular working memory viewpoint regarding the formation of inferences during discourse processing are described.
Abstract: Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the theoretical and empirical literature that addresses aging and discourse comprehension. A series of five studies guided by a particular working memory viewpoint regarding the formation of inferences during discourse processing is described in the chapter. Compensatory strategies may be used with different degrees of likelihood across the life span largely as a function of efficiency with which inhibitory mechanisms function because these largely determine the facility with which memory can be searched. The consequences for discourse comprehension in particular may be profound because the establishment of a coherent representation of a message hinges on the timely retrieval of information necessary to establish coreference among certain critical ideas. Discourse comprehension is an ideal domain for assessing limited capacity frameworks because most models of discourse processing assume that multiple components, demanding substantially different levels of cognitive resources, are involved. For example, access to a lexical representation from either a visual array or an auditory message is virtually capacity free.
3,331 citations
"Oh, Honey, I Already Forgot That : ..." refers background in this paper
...Given that older adults’ memory deficits have been attributed in part to impaired inhibitory abilities (e.g., Hasher & Zacks, 1988) or to associative memory deficits, including difficulties in binding events to their context (e.g., Chalfonte & Johnson, 1996; M. K. Johnson, 1997; Naveh-Benjamin,…...
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01 Jan 1992
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors provide a broad overview of the field of cognitive aging research, including abnormal aging, the neuroscience of aging, and applied cognitive psychology along with the core section on basic cognitive processes.
Abstract: The study of age-related changes in cognitive processes is flourishing as never before, making the area an exciting one for a growing number of researchers. In addition, cognitive aging research is moving out from its traditional roots in experimental and developmental psychology -- creating increased contact with cognitive neuropsychology and cognitive neuroscience. To reflect these changes in the field, this volume includes chapters on abnormal aging, the neuroscience of aging, and applied cognitive psychology along with the core section on basic cognitive processes. While other recent compilations of research in this area have given relatively brief overviews of the literature, the contributors were given space to review each topic in depth, asked to evaluate the field -- not simply their own contributions -- and to provide critical commentaries from their personal perspectives. Couched most often in terms of cognitive or information-processing models, the general perspective of the contributors is a biologically-based account of aging. This shared viewpoint gives the volume particular coherence in its treatment of theories and data. Topics covered include age differences in attention, perception, memory, knowledge representation, reasoning, and language as well as their neuropsychological and neurological correlates and practical implications.
2,428 citations
"Oh, Honey, I Already Forgot That : ..." refers background in this paper
...It is known that older adults have negative stereotypes about the effects of aging on memory (Camp & Pignatiello, 1988; Hertzog & Hultsch, 2000; Hummert, 1990; Kite & Johnson, 1988; Lineweaver & Hertzog, 1998; Ryan, 1992), and believe that they will perform more poorly on memory tests compared to younger adults (Berry & West, 1993; Cavanaugh, 1996; Cavanaugh & Green, 1990; West & Berry, 1994)....
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Book•
01 Jan 1973TL;DR: In this paper, a theory about human memory, about how a person encodes, retains, and retrieves information from memory, was proposed and tested, based on the HAM theory.
Abstract: Published in 1980, part of the Experimental Psychology series. This book proposes and tests a theory about human memory, about how a person encodes, retains, and retrieves information from memory. This edition contains two major parts. First is the historical analysis of associationism and its countertraditions. This still provides the framework that has been used to relate the current research to an important intellectual tradition. This is reproduced without comment from the original book; historical analyses do not need as rapid revision as theoretical analyses. The second part of the book reproduces the major components of the HAM theory.
2,340 citations
"Oh, Honey, I Already Forgot That : ..." refers background in this paper
...…about the temporal–spatial–mental context— that is, the time–place of an event, as well as the internal cognitive state of the participant (e.g., Anderson & Bower, 1973; Gillund & Shiffrin, 1984; Humphreys, 1976; M. K. Johnson & Chalfonte, 1994; M. K. Johnson, Hashtroudi, & Lindsay, 1993;…...
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