Oh, Honey, I Already Forgot That : Strategic Control of Directed Forgetting in Older and Younger Adults*

doi:10.1037/A0012766

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Oh, Honey, I Already Forgot That : Strategic Control of Directed Forgetting in Older and Younger Adults*

Journal Article•DOI•

Oh, Honey, I Already Forgot That : Strategic Control of Directed Forgetting in Older and Younger Adults*

Lili Sahakyan¹, Peter F. Delaney¹, Leilani B. Goodmon¹•Institutions (1)

University of North Carolina at Greensboro¹

01 Sep 2008-Psychology and Aging (NIH Public Access)-Vol. 23, Iss: 3, pp 621-633

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.

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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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Journal Article•DOI•

Intentional suppression of unwanted memories grows more difficult as we age.

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Michael C. Anderson¹, Julia Reinholz², Brice A. Kuhl³, Ulrich Mayr⁴•Institutions (4)

Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit¹, University of Münster², Yale University³, University of Oregon⁴

01 Jun 2011-Psychology and Aging

TL;DR: It is demonstrated that the ability to intentionally regulate conscious awareness of unwanted memories through inhibitory control declines with age, highlighting differences in memory control that may be of clinical relevance in the aftermath of unpleasant life events.

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Abstract: People often encounter reminders to memories that they would prefer not to think about. When this happens, they often try to exclude the unwanted memory from awareness, a process that relies upon inhibitory control. We propose that the ability to regulate awareness of unwanted memories through inhibition declines with advancing age. In two experiments, we examined younger and older adults’ ability to intentionally suppress retrieval when repeatedly confronted with reminders to an experience they were instructed to not think about. Older adults exhibited significantly less forgetting of the suppressed items compared to younger adults on a later independent probe test of recall, indicating that older adults failed to inhibit the to-be-avoided memories. These findings demonstrate that the ability to intentionally regulate conscious awareness of unwanted memories through inhibitory control declines with age, highlighting differences in memory control that may be of clinical relevance in the aftermath of unpleasant life events.

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100 citations

Cites background or result from "Oh, Honey, I Already Forgot That : ..."

...This finding may differ from that reported by Sahakyan et al. (2008) with the directed forgetting procedure, perhaps because the Think/No-Think task confronts participants with strong cues to well learned responses that may create a more challenging control task....
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...…indicates that older adults sometimes are less able to intentionally forget a first list of memory items when given an instruction to forget followed by a second list (Sahakyan et al., 2008; Zacks, Radvanksy, & Hasher, 1996; however, see Zellner & Bäuml, 2006; Sego, Goldin, & Gottlob, 2006)....
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...It remains unclear, however, whether the reduced forgetting for older adults observed in the directed forgetting procedure reflects an inhibition deficit, or a tendency, on the part of older adults, to simply not try to forget because they feel they do not need to (Sahakyan et al., 2008)....
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Journal Article•DOI•

Remembering to Forget: The Amnesic Effect of Daydreaming

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Peter F. Delaney¹, Lili Sahakyan¹, Colleen M. Kelley², Carissa A. Zimmerman²•Institutions (2)

University of North Carolina at Greensboro¹, Florida State University²

14 Jun 2010-Psychological Science

TL;DR: Results of two experiments support a context-change account of the amnesic effects of daydreaming, which suggests that daydreams that are more different from the current moment will result in more forgetting than daydreamed that are less different fromThe current moment.

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Abstract: Daydreaming mentally transports people to another place or time. Many daydreams are similar in content to the thoughts that people generate when they intentionally try to forget. Thus, thoughts like those generated during daydreaming can cause forgetting of previously encoded events. We conducted two experiments to test the hypothesis that daydreams that are more different from the current moment (e.g., in distance, time, or circumstance) will result in more forgetting than daydreams that are less different from the current moment, because they result in a greater contextual shift. Daydreaming was simulated in the laboratory via instructions to engage in a diversionary thought. Participants learned a list of words, were asked to think about autobiographical memories, and then learned a second list of words. They tended to forget more words from the first list when they thought about their parents' home than when they thought about their current home (Experiment 1). They also tended to forget more when they thought about an international vacation than when they thought about a domestic vacation (Experiment 2). These results support a context-change account of the amnesic effects of daydreaming.

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99 citations

Book Chapter•DOI•

List-Method Directed Forgetting in Cognitive and Clinical Research: A Theoretical and Methodological Review

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Lili Sahakyan¹, Peter F. Delaney¹, Nathaniel L. Foster¹, Branden Abushanab¹•Institutions (1)

University of North Carolina at Greensboro¹

01 Jan 2013-Psychology of Learning and Motivation

TL;DR: The authors provide an up-to-date review of the twenty-first century research and theory on list-method directed forgetting (DF) and related phenomena like the context-change effect.

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Abstract: The primary purpose of this chapter is to provide an up-to-date review of the twenty-first century research and theory on list-method directed forgetting (DF) and related phenomena like the context-change effect. Many researchers have assumed that DF is diagnostic of inhibition, but we argue for an alternative, noninhibitory account and suggest reinterpretation of earlier findings. We first describe what DF is and the state of the art with regard to measuring the effect. Then, we review recent evidence that brings DF into the family of effects that can be explained by global memory models. The process-based theory we advocate is that the DF impairment arises from mental context change and that the DF benefits emerge mainly but perhaps not exclusively from changes in encoding strategy. We review evidence (some new to this paper) that strongly suggests that DF arises from the engagement of controlled forgetting strategies that are independent of whether people believed the forget cue or not. Then we describe the vast body of literature supporting that forgetting strategies result in contextual change effects, as well as point out some inconsistencies in the DF literature that need to be addressed in future research. Next, we provide evidence—again, some of it new to this chapter—that the reason people show better memory after a forget cue is that they change encoding strategies. In addition to reviewing the basic research with healthy population, we reinterpret the evidence from the literature on certain clinical populations, providing a critique of the work done to date and outlining ways of improving the methodology for the study of DF in special populations. We conclude with a critical discussion of alternative approaches to understanding DF.

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76 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

Intentional forgetting of actions: Comparison of list-method and item-method directed forgetting

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Lili Sahakyan¹, Nathaniel L. Foster¹•Institutions (1)

University of North Carolina at Greensboro¹

01 Jul 2009-Journal of Memory and Language

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors used the item-method of directed forgetting and obtained greater directed forgetting for VTs than SPTs, but only in the primacy region for SPTs.

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70 citations

Cites background from "Oh, Honey, I Already Forgot That : ..."

...…investigations of directed forgetting have also taken this approach (e.g., Bäuml et al., 2008; Pastötter & Bäuml, 2007; Sahakyan & Delaney, 2005; Sahakyan & Goodmon, 2007; Sahakyan et al., 2008; Zellner & Bäuml, 2006).1 Unless otherwise specified, the results were significant at a = .05 level....
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...Recent investigations of directed forgetting have also taken this approach (e.g., Bäuml et al., 2008; Pastötter & Bäuml, 2007; Sahakyan & Delaney, 2005; Sahakyan & Goodmon, 2007; Sahakyan et al., 2008; Zellner & Bäuml, 2006)....
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Journal Article•DOI•

Aging and directed forgetting in episodic memory: A meta-analysis.

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Cora Titz, Paul Verhaeghen¹•Institutions (1)

Georgia Institute of Technology¹

01 Jun 2010-Psychology and Aging

TL;DR: Age effects were reliably larger when the item method was used, suggesting that these effects are mainly due to encoding differences.

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Abstract: In this meta-analysis, we examined the effects of aging on directed forgetting. A cue to forget is more effective in younger (d = 1.17) than in older (d = 0.81) adults. Directed-forgetting effects were larger (a) with the item method rather than with the list method, (b) with longer presentation times, (c) with longer postcue rehearsal times, (d) with single words rather than with verbal action phrases as stimuli, (e) with shorter lists, and (f) when recall rather than recognition was tested. Age effects were reliably larger when the item method was used, suggesting that these effects are mainly due to encoding differences.

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60 citations

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Journal Article•DOI•

The Crucial Role of Postcue Encoding in Directed Forgetting and Context-Dependent Forgetting.

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Bernhard Pastötter¹, Karl-Heinz T. Bäuml¹•Institutions (1)

University of Regensburg¹

01 Sep 2007-Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition

TL;DR: The authors compared directed forgetting and context-dependent forgetting by examining whether, like a forget cue, a change in internal context needs subsequent learning of new material to be effective.

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Abstract: People can intentionally forget previously studied material if, after study, a forget cue is provided and new material is learned. It has recently been suggested that such list-method directed forgetting arises because the forget cue induces a change in internal context and causes context-dependent forgetting of the studied material (L. Sahakyan & C. M. Kelley, 2002). The authors compared directed forgetting and context-dependent forgetting by examining whether, like a forget cue, a change in internal context needs subsequent learning of new material to be effective. Participants studied an item list and, after study, received a remember cue or a forget cue or their internal context was changed through an imagination task. In each condition, half the participants learned a second list, and the other half fulfilled an unrelated distractor task. Both the forget cue and the change in internal context induced forgetting of the first list only when learning of the second list was interpolated. These results suggest that postcue encoding of new material is crucial for both directed forgetting and (some forms of) context-dependent forgetting.

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84 citations

"Oh, Honey, I Already Forgot That : ..." refers background in this paper

...Recently, Pastötter and Bäuml (2007) demonstrated one more parallel between these conditions by showing that a boundary condition for directed forgetting—the need for the second list learning— also serves as a boundary condition for the context-change condition....
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Journal Article•DOI•

No Inhibitory Deficit in Older Adults' Episodic Memory

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Alp Aslan¹, Karl-Heinz T. Bäuml¹, Bernhard Pastötter¹•Institutions (1)

University of Regensburg¹

01 Jan 2007-Psychological Science

TL;DR: The results indicate that retrieval inhibition is intact in older adults' episodic recall and suggest that the common view of a general inhibitory deficit in Older adults needs to be updated and that older adults show intact inhibition in some cognitive tasks and deficient inhibition in others.

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Abstract: Selectively retrieving a subset of previously studied material can cause forgetting of the unpracticed material. Such retrieval-induced forgetting is attributed to an inhibitory mechanism recruited to resolve interference among competing items. According to the inhibition-deficit hypothesis, older people experience a specific decline in inhibitory function and thus should show reduced retrieval-induced forgetting. However, the results of the two experiments reported here show the same amount of retrieval-induced forgetting in younger and older adults. These results indicate that retrieval inhibition is intact in older adults' episodic recall. The findings suggest that the common view of a general inhibitory deficit in older adults needs to be updated and that older adults show intact inhibition in some cognitive tasks and deficient inhibition in others.

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81 citations

Memory: Handbook of Perception and Cognition

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Elizabeth Ligon Bjork, Robert A. Bjork

01 Jan 1996

81 citations

"Oh, Honey, I Already Forgot That : ..." refers background or methods in this paper

...In contrast, list-method directed forgetting somehow reduces access to to-be-forgotten items at test (E. L. Bjork & Bjork, 1996, 2003; R. A. Bjork, 1989; but see Benjamin, 2006; Sheard & MacLeod, 2005), and several retrieval-based mechanisms have been proposed....
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...The interference reduction account attributes the benefits to reduced proactive interference on List 2 in the forget group that occurs either from inhibition of List 1 items (e.g., E. L. Bjork & Bjork, 1996), or from contextual differentiation between the lists (Sahakyan & Kelley, 2002)....
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...…learning (e.g., Geiselman, Bjork, & Fishman, 1983; Sahakyan & Delaney, 2005; Sahakyan, Delaney, & Waldum, 2008), some researchers propose that directed forgetting is due to inhibition at the time of retrieval (e.g., E. L. Bjork & Bjork, 1996, 2003; R. A. Bjork, 1989; Geiselman et al., 1983)....
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Journal Article•DOI•

Inhibitory Deficits in Older Adults: List-Method Directed Forgetting Revisited.

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Martina Zellner¹, Karl-Heinz T. Bäuml¹•Institutions (1)

University of Regensburg¹

01 Mar 2006-Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition

TL;DR: The present results challenge the proposal of a general inhibitory deficit in older adults' memory performance, which is assumed to reflect retrieval inhibition in list-method directed forgetting.

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Abstract: In list-method directed forgetting, participants are cued to intentionally forget a previously studied list while remembering a subsequently presented 2nd list. Results from prior research are inconclusive on whether older adults show deficits in this type of task. In 3 experiments, the authors reexamined the issue and compared younger and older adults' responsiveness to the forget cue. Across the experiments, the forget cue was varied within and between participants, the 2 lists were unrelated and related to each other, and recall of the lists was required simultaneously and successively. In none of the 3 experiments did any age-related difference in directed forgetting performance emerge. List-method directed forgetting is assumed to reflect retrieval inhibition. The present results thus challenge the proposal of a general inhibitory deficit in older adults' memory performance.

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81 citations

"Oh, Honey, I Already Forgot That : ..." refers background or methods or result in this paper

...We suspect that participants in the Zellner and Bäuml (2006) and Sego et al. (2006) studies might have been more likely to spontaneously engage in effective forgetting strategies than our participants....
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...The lack of directed forgetting with older adults is surprising because previous studies have reported reliable costs with similar samples (Sego et al., 2006; Zellner & Bäuml, 2006)....
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...In other words, we obtained forgetting by altering older adults’ mental context, but failed to replicate the findings of intact directed forgetting in this age group reported by Zellner and Bäuml (2006) and Sego et al. (2006)....
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...The findings of Zellner and Bäuml (2006) and Sego et al. (2006) appeared after we completed the first experiment, and the divergence between our results motivated us to further explore the reasons for our nonsignificant directed forgetting costs with older adults....
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...In one of their studies, Zellner and Bäuml (2006) also reported nonsignificant benefits in either age group with semantically related lists....
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Book•DOI•

Dynamic cognitive processes

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信夫太田, Colin MacLeod, Uttl Bob

01 Jan 2005

TL;DR: The role of Inhibitory Control in Forgetting Unwanted Memories, Conscious and Unconscious Processes in Hypermnesia, and Age-Related Changes in Event-Cued Prospective Memory Proper are reviewed.

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Abstract: Dynamic Cognitive Processes in Broad Perspective.- Acquisition of Long-Term Visual Representations: Psychological and Neural Mechanisms.- Top-Down and Bottom-Up Processes in the Perception of Reversible Figures: Toward a Hybrid Model.- Dynamic Uses of Memory in Visual Search Over Time and Space.- Memory for Information Perceived Without Awareness.- The Devil Is in The Detail: A Constructionist Account of Repetition Blindness.- Creation Theory of Cognition: Is Memory Retrieved or Created?.- The Role of Inhibitory Control in Forgetting Unwanted Memories: A Consideration of Three Methods.- Encoding Deselection and Long-Term Memory.- List Method Directed Forgetting: Return of the Selective Rehearsal Account.- Conscious and Unconscious Processes in Hypermnesia.- Age-Related Changes in Event-Cued Prospective Memory Proper.- Prospective Memory Retrieval Revisited.- Hippocampal Complex Contribution to Retention and Retrieval of Recent and Remote Episodic and Semantic Memories: Evidence from Behavioral and Neuroimaging Studies of Healthy and Brain-Damaged People.

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80 citations