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In two experiments, we examined the competition dependence of retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) in motor memory. Participants learned sequential finger movements as responses to letter stimuli. The learning phase comprised two parts. In both parts, half of the motor sequences were to be executed at one of two locations (the left or right side of a keyboard) by pressing the corresponding response keys. Retrieval practice of half of the motor sequences at one location induced forgetting of the nonpracticed motor sequences at that location. However, RIF was prevented in Experiment 1 when retrieval practice took place before the nonpracticed items had even been encoded. In Experiment 2, RIF was prevented by intentionally forgetting the nonpracticed motor sequences prior to retrieval practice. These results suggest that precluding competition by related items during retrieval practice precluded them from being affected by RIF. The present findings support an inhibitory account and speak against the alternative assumptions that associative blocking or a mental context change causes RIF.
Providing a subset of previously studied items as a retrieval cue can both impair and improve recall of the remaining items. Here, we investigated the development of these two opposing effects of such part-list cuing in children. Using listwise directed forgetting to manipulate study context access, three child age groups (7–8, 9–11, and 13–14 years) and young adults studied a list of items and, after study, were asked to either forget or continue remembering the list. After presentation of a second list, participants were tested on predefined target items from the original list in either the presence or absence of the list’s remaining (nontarget) items serving as retrieval cues. Results revealed that part-list cuing impaired recall of to-be-remembered target items regardless of age. In contrast, part-list cuing improved recall of to-be-forgotten target items in the adult and the oldest child groups but not in the two younger child groups. This finding suggests a developmental dissociation between the two opposing effects of part-list cuing, indicating that the beneficial effect develops later than the detrimental effect. In particular, following the view that the beneficial effect of part-list cuing arises from reactivation of the study context, the results suggest that elementary school children have difficulty in capitalizing on context reactivation.
The presentation of a subset of studied items as retrieval cues can have detrimental effects on recall of the remaining (target) items. In three experiments we examined whether such part-list cueing impairment depends on the similarity between cue and target items. Item similarity was manipulated by making use of pre-experimental semantic similarities between cue and target items (Experiments 1 and 2), or was episodically induced through a similarity-encoding task, in which participants were asked to interrelate cue and target items in a meaningful way (Experiment 3). In all three experiments reliable part-list cueing impairment arose when the similarity between cues and targets was low, but no impairment was found when the similarity between cues and targets was high. Inhibitory as well as non-inhibitory explanations of the findings are discussed.
In listwise directed forgetting, participants are cued to forget previously studied material and to learn new material instead. Such cueing typically leads to forgetting of the first set of material and to memory enhancement of the second. The present study examined the role of working memory capacity in adults' and children's listwise directed forgetting. Working memory capacity was assessed with complex span tasks. In Experiment 1 working memory capacity predicted young adults' directed-forgetting performance, demonstrating a positive relationship between working memory capacity and each of the two directed-forgetting effects. In Experiment 2 we replicated the finding with a sample of first and a sample of fourth-grade children, and additionally showed that working memory capacity can account for age-related increases in directed-forgetting efficiency between the two age groups. Following the view that directed forgetting is mediated by inhibition of the first encoded list, the results support the proposal of a close link between working memory capacity and inhibitory function.
Numerous studies from the past five decades have shown that selective retrieval of some studied items can impair recall of other items. This chapter reviews more recent work, in which it is demonstrated that selective memory retrieval has two faces and that it can both impair and improve recall of other items. In this recent work, participants' access to study context during selective retrieval was experimentally manipulated and it was examined whether such manipulation influences the effects of selective retrieval. Access to study context was manipulated using listwise directed forgetting, context-dependent forgetting and time-dependent forgetting. The results consistently showed that selective retrieval impairs recall of other memories if access to study context during retrieval is largely maintained, but that selective retrieval can improve recall if study context access is impaired. The findings are explained by a two-factor account, which claims that, in general, selective retrieval does not only trigger inhibition and blocking but also triggers context reactivation processes. The proposal is that primarily inhibition and blocking operate when study context access during selective retrieval is largely maintained, whereas primarily context reactivation processes operate when study context access is impaired. Current findings on the two faces of selective retrieval are well consistent with this theoretical view.
Selective retrieval of some studied items can both impair and improve recall of the other items. This study examined the role of working memory capacity (WMC) for the two effects of memory retrieval. Participants studied an item list consisting of predefined target and nontarget items. After study of the list, half of the participants performed an imagination task supposed to induce a change in mental context, whereas the other half performed a counting task which does not induce such context change. Following presentation of a second list, memory for the original list's target items was tested, either with or without preceding retrieval of the list's nontarget items. Consistent with previous work, preceding nontarget retrieval impaired target recall in the absence of the context change, but improved target recall in its presence. In particular, there was a positive relationship between WMC and the beneficial, but not the detrimental effect of memory retrieval. On the basis of the view that the beneficial effect of memory retrieval reflects context-reactivation processes, the results indicate that individuals with higher WMC are better able to capitalise on retrieval-induced context reactivation than individuals with lower WMC.