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: Overall, it is found that alexithymia impairs the ability of both younger and older adults to cognitively control negative material (through both recall and inhibition), and the “externally oriented thinking” factor of alexity appears to play a particularly pertinent role in terms of inhibiting negative material.
Abstract: We investigated the moderating impact of the personality construct alexithymia on the ability of younger and older adults to control the recall of negative and neutral material. We conducted two experiments using the directed forgetting paradigm with younger and older adults. Participants studied negative (Experiment 1) or neutral (Experiment 2) words. Participants were instructed to forget the first half and remember the second half of an entire list of words. Overall, we found that alexithymia impairs the ability of both younger and older adults to cognitively control negative material (through both recall and inhibition). The “externally oriented thinking” factor of alexithymia appears to play a particularly pertinent role in terms of inhibiting negative material. Furthermore, older adults recalled fewer sought after negative items, but this was not evident in terms of inhibition. In contrast, only age (older adults) negatively impacted the recall of sought after neutral items. Interestingly, alexithym...
17 citations
Cites background from "Oh, Honey, I Already Forgot That : ..."
...However, recent research suggests that the impaired recall of TBF items may better be framed in terms of context change (Sahakyan & Foster, 2009; Sahakyan & Kelley, 2002; Sahakyan et al., 2008)....
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...…of studies using the directed forgetting paradigm have shown that ageing decreases the ability of individuals to intentionally forget unwanted memories (Dywan & Murphy, 1996; Hasher et al., 1999; Jacoby et al., 2005; Zacks et al., 1996; but see Castel, Farb, & Craik, 2007; Sahakyan et al., 2008)....
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TL;DR: To examine how aging influences the ability to control and update the encoding of high-value information, younger and older adults studied six lists of words that varied in terms of the point values associated with each word.
Abstract: It is often necessary to remember important information while directing attention away from encoding less valuable information. To examine how aging influences the ability to control and update the encoding of high-value information, younger and older adults studied six lists of words that varied in terms of the point values associated with each word. The words were paired with the same high and low point values for three study-test cycles, but on the fourth and subsequent cycles the value-word pairings were switched such that the lowest value pairs became the highest values (and vice versa). For the first three study-test cycles, younger adults outperformed older adults in terms of the number of words recalled and overall point totals, but performance was similar in terms of selectively remembering high-value words. When the values were switched, both groups displayed substantial interference from the previous pairings. Although both groups improved with additional study-test cycles, only younger...
15 citations
TL;DR: The results indicate that listwise DF is a late-declining capability, suggesting a deficit in very old adults' episodic memory control.
Abstract: People can exert control over the contents of their memory and can intentionally forget information when cued to do so. The present study examined such intentional forgetting in older adults using the listwise directed forgetting (DF) task. We replicated prior work by finding intact forgetting in young-old adults (up to 75 years). Extending the prior work, we additionally found forgetting to decline gradually with individuals' age and to be inefficient in old-old adults (above 75 years). The results indicate that listwise DF is a late-declining capability, suggesting a deficit in very old adults' episodic memory control.
15 citations
Cites background or result from "Oh, Honey, I Already Forgot That : ..."
...Sahakyan et al. (2008), for instance, found reduced forgetting in older adults who felt that efforts to forget were needless because they forgot the information anyway....
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...Recent work highlighted the role of strategic and/or metacognitive processes in listwise DF, suggesting that whether individuals show forgetting, or not, can depend on whether they engage in deliberate attempts to forget at all (Aslan, Staudigl, et al., 2010; Sahakyan et al., 2008)....
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...…Psychological Association 2013, Vol. 28, No. 1, 213–218 0882-7974/13/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0031295 213 the role of strategic/metacognitive processes, Sahakyan, Delaney, and Goodmon (2008) also found equivalent forgetting in younger and older adults, at least when older adults’ motivation to…...
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...Examining participants with a mean age of about 70 years, previous studies on listwise DF repeatedly reported intact forgetting in older adults (Sahakyan et al., 2008; Sego et al., 2006; Zellner & Bäuml, 2006)....
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TL;DR: This article found that younger adults were more likely to recall words from previous lists than older adults, indicating that older adults are more susceptible to retroactive interference and that a buildup of proactive interference arising from previously studied words reduced memory selectivity in older adults.
Abstract: We are often presented with more information than we can remember, and we must selectively focus on the most valuable information to maximize memory utility. Most tests of value-based memory involve encoding and then being tested on a list of recently studied information. Thus, people are focused on memory for the current list and are encouraged to forget information from earlier lists. However, prior learning can influence later memory, in both interfering and beneficial ways, and there may be age-related differences in how younger and older adults are influenced by the costs and benefits of prior learning and interference. In the present study, we presented younger and older adults with words paired with point values to remember for a later test but rather than asking participants to only recall words from the just-studied list, participants were asked to recall all studied words on each recall test. Results revealed that younger adults were more likely to recall words from previous lists than older adults, indicating that older adults were more susceptible to retroactive interference. Moreover, although selectivity is often preserved in older adults when study-test cycles are independent, a buildup of proactive interference arising from previously studied words reduced memory selectivity in older adults. Thus, when presented with more information than one can remember, younger adults are better at combating interference and recalling valuable information, while older adults may engage in selective forgetting of prior lists to enhance a "present-focused" form of memory, possibly as a result of impaired inhibitory control. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
13 citations
TL;DR: The results suggest an age-related dissociation in retrieval dynamics, indicating an earlier decline of the beneficial than the detrimental effect of selective retrieval with older age.
Abstract: Recent work with young adults has shown that, depending on study context access, selective memory retrieval can both impair and improve recall of other memories (Bauml & Samenieh, 2010). Here, we investigated the 2 opposing effects of selective retrieval in older age. In Experiment 1, we examined 64 younger (20-35 years) and 64 older participants (above 60 years), and manipulated study context access using list-method directed forgetting. Whereas both age groups showed a detrimental effect of selective retrieval on to-be-remembered items, only younger but not older adults showed a beneficial effect on to-be-forgotten items. In Experiment 2, we examined 112 participants from a relatively wide age range (40-85 years), and manipulated study context access by varying the retention interval between study and test. Overall, a detrimental effect of selective retrieval arose when the retention interval was relatively short, but a beneficial effect when the retention interval was prolonged. Critically, the size of the beneficial but not the detrimental effect of retrieval decreased with age and this age-related decline was mediated by individuals' working memory capacity, as measured by the complex operation span task. Together, the results suggest an age-related dissociation in retrieval dynamics, indicating an earlier decline of the beneficial than the detrimental effect of selective retrieval with older age.
13 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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