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 present experiment investigated whether de-emphasising forgetting affected the magnitude of list-method directed forgetting in college adults and indicated equivalent directed forgetting for both types of cues.
Abstract: Research suggests that manipulating the wording of the forget cue in list-method directed forgetting affects the magnitude of directed forgetting both in younger children (Aslan, Staudigl, Samenieh, & Bauml, in press) and in older adults (Sahakyan, Delaney, & Goodmon, 2008). This occurs when the forget cue overemphasises the importance of forgetting in the current context. The present experiment investigated whether de-emphasising forgetting affected the magnitude of list-method directed forgetting in college adults. Some participants received overt forget cues that explicitly instructed them to forget earlier studied items, whereas others received covert forget cues that implied forgetting by emphasising selective remembering (e.g., "you will only need to remember some of the items"). Results indicated equivalent directed forgetting for both types of cues. However, regardless of the type of cue received, participants who reported using specific forgetting strategies in response to the forget cue showed directed forgetting, whereas those that reported doing nothing did not show any effects. The results underscore that successful directed forgetting requires engagement of controlled processes.
25 citations
Cites background from "Oh, Honey, I Already Forgot That : ..."
...In Sahakyan et al. (2008) older adults reported engaging in specific strategies when the forget cue placed a high emphasis on the need to forget, whereas with the standard forget cue older adults did not deploy any strategies to forget, in part because they believed they had already forgotten the…...
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...In the context of directed forgetting, participants who perceive their memory to be poor may not even try to forget (e.g., Sahakyan et al., 2008)....
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...Prior research suggests that, in older adults, directed forgetting depends on the use of forgetting strategies (Sahakyan et al., 2008)....
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...( 2008 ) observed directed forgetting in older adults only when they used a “modified” forget cue, which encouraged participants to engage in forgetting despite thinking that they had already forgotten—a common sentiment among older adults....
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...For example, Sahakyan et al. (2008) observed directed forgetting in older adults only when they used a ‘‘modified’’ forget cue, which encouraged participants to engage in forgetting despite thinking that they had already forgotten*a common sentiment among older adults....
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TL;DR: The results suggest that regardless of the test conditions, younger adults do not hyper-bind, while older adults showed hyper-binding under (standard) implicit instructions, but not when made aware of a connection between tasks.
Abstract: We have previously shown that older adults hyper-bind, or form more extraneous associations than younger adults. For instance, when asked to perform a 1-back task on pictures superimposed with distracting words, older adults inadvertently form associations between target-distractor pairs and implicitly transfer these associations to a later paired associate learning task (showing a boost in relearning of preserved over disrupted pairs). We have argued that younger adults are better at suppressing the distracting words and thus, do not form these extraneous associations in the first place. However, an alternative explanation is that younger adults simply fail to access these associations during relearning, possibly because of their superior ability to form boundaries between episodes or shift mental contexts between tasks. In this study, we aimed to both replicate this original implicit transfer effect in older adults and to test whether younger adults show evidence of hyper-binding when informed about the relevance of past information. Our results suggest that regardless of the test conditions, younger adults do not hyper-bind. In contrast, older adults showed hyper-binding under (standard) implicit instructions, but not when made aware of a connection between tasks. These results replicate the original hyper-binding effect and reiterate its implicit nature. (PsycINFO Database Record
23 citations
Cites background from "Oh, Honey, I Already Forgot That : ..."
...…associations on a subsequent task, either because of their superior ability to suppress the recent (but no longer relevant) past (Bugg et al., 2016; Hamm & Hasher, 1992; Scullin et al., 2011) or their greater shift in mental contexts between tasks (Radvansky et al., 2011; Sahakyan et al., 2008)....
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TL;DR: Examination of the effect of reward motivation on directed remembering and forgetting found high compared to low value reward anticipation leads to engagement of processes that result in better memory regardless of the TBR or TBF cue, and reward anticipation bolsters memory in a relatively automatic, rather than strategic, fashion.
Abstract: An important feature of the memory system is the ability to forget, but aging is associated with declines in the ability to intentionally forget potentially due to declines in cognitive control. Despite cognitive deficits, older adults are sensitive to affective manipulations, such as reward motivation, and reward anticipation can improve older adults' memory performance. The goal of the current studies was to examine the effect of reward motivation on directed remembering and forgetting. Participants were healthy CloudResearch/Turk Prime workers aged 18-35 and 60-85. In Experiment 1, we conducted a typical item-method directed forgetting task using neutral words presented one at a time followed by a to-be-remembered (TBR) or to-be-forgotten (TBF) cue. A recognition memory test followed that included all words from the encoding task, as well as new words. We replicated prior findings of better memory for TBR compared to TBF items, but not typical age-related differences in recognition of TBF items. In Experiments 2-4, we repeated this paradigm except that in the second block of trials, each word was presented with a high ($0.75) or low ($0.01) reward cue indicating the value that could be earned if the item was successfully Remembered or Forgotten (depending on cue). During recognition, correct responses to target items (both TBR and TBF) resulted in the associated reward, but incorrect "old" responses resulted in a loss of $0.50. In three experiments, high rewards led to better memory for younger and older adults compared to low rewards, regardless of the directed cue to remember or forget the word. In Experiments 3 and 4, older adults showed typical deficits in directed forgetting, but this was across reward conditions. For older adults, there was no evidence that including reward motivation improved cognitive control abilities as high value reward anticipation did not improve directed forgetting. Instead, in line with hypotheses, high compared to low value reward anticipation leads to engagement of processes that result in better memory regardless of the TBR or TBF cue, and reward anticipation bolsters memory in a relatively automatic, rather than strategic, fashion that overrides one's ability to cognitively control encoding processes.
21 citations
TL;DR: Evidence is shown of older adults' impoverished capacity to voluntarily forget episodic memories, although only when the task requires selective forgetting, to suggest that sensitiveness to detect adult-age differences in cognitive control may strongly depend on the executive-control demands imposed by tasks.
Abstract: Aging is thought to involve a decline in executive-control capacities, although evidence regarding this claim is not always clear. Thus, although studies exist that suggest impoverished inhibitory memory control in older adults relative to younger adults, experiments with the list-method direct forgetting procedure have mostly failed to show adult-age differences in voluntary forgetting. In the present study we aimed to further study this issue by comparing young-old and young adults' performance with the selective directed forgetting (SDF) procedure, which we assumed to involve higher demands of executive control than the standard nonselective procedure. Thus, on the basis of previous studies showing that a critical factor in finding adult-age differences in executive-control tasks is the overall challenge posed by the tasks, we predicted less SDF in older adults than in younger adults. Supporting our hypothesis, across three experiments we show evidence of older adults' impoverished capacity to voluntarily forget episodic memories, although only when the task requires selective forgetting. Ours join other findings to suggest that sensitiveness to detect adult-age differences in cognitive control may strongly depend on the executive-control demands imposed by tasks.
19 citations
TL;DR: The claim that mental context change underlies both intentional and unintentional forgetting is supported, as an unexpected task produced costs comparable to a forget instruction, as did as a brief chat between lists.
Abstract: Costs and benefits of directed forgetting are observed when a between-list instruction to forget List 1 impairs List 1 recall while enhancing List 2 recall. These effects are often ascribed to intentional inhibition of List 1. Contrary to this inhibition account, we found that a forget instruction did not produce costs unless an explicit instruction to concentrate on List 2 was used (Experiment 1). Alternatively, costs may be ascribed to a shift in mental context between encoding and retrieval. Consistent with this mental context-change account, an unexpected task (wiping the computer screen and one's hands) produced costs comparable to a forget instruction, as did as a brief chat between lists (Experiment 2). A number-search task between lists produced neither costs nor benefits (Experiment 3), suggesting that mere distraction is insufficient for inducing mental context change. Our findings support the claim that mental context change underlies both intentional and unintentional forgetting.
19 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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