TY - JOUR A1 - Aslan, Alp A1 - Staudigl, Tobias A1 - Samenieh, Anuscheh A1 - Bäuml, Karl-Heinz T. T1 - Directed forgetting in young children: Evidence for a production deficiency JF - Psychonomic Bulletin & Review N2 - When people are cued to forget a previously studied list of items and to learn a new list instead, such cuing typically leads to forgetting of the first list and to memory enhancement of the second. In two experiments, we examined such listwise directed forgetting in children (and adults), using a forget cue that placed either high emphasis or low emphasis on the need to forget. In the low-emphasis condition, (adult-like) List 1 forgetting was present in fourth graders, but not in first graders (and kindergartners); in contrast, in the high-emphasis condition, (adult-like) List 1 forgetting was present from first grade on. Only fourth graders showed (adult-like) List 2 enhancement, regardless of task instruction. The finding that first graders showed List 1 forgetting only in the high-emphasis condition points to a production deficiency in first graders’ directed forgetting, suggesting that the children are capable of intentional forgetting but fail to do so spontaneously. The finding that first graders showed List 1 forgetting without List 2 enhancement suggests that the two directed-forgetting effects are mediated by different processes with different developmental trajectories. KW - Fourth Grader KW - Task Instruction KW - High Emphasis KW - Retrieval Inhibition KW - Production Deficiency Y1 - 2021 UR - https://doi.org/10.3758/PBR.17.6.784 VL - 17 IS - 6 SP - 784 EP - 789 ER -