Two experiments investigated list-method directed forgetting with older and younger adults. Using standard directed forgetting instructions, significant forgetting was obtained with younger but not older adults. However, in Experiment 1 older adults showed forgetting with an experimenterprovided strategy that induced a mental context change --specifically, engaging in diversionary thought. Experiment 2 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. When the instructions were revised to downplay their concerns about memory, older adults engaged in effective forgetting strategies and showed significant directed forgetting comparable in magnitude to younger adults. The results highlight the importance of strategic processes in directed forgetting.

Recalling an experience often impairs the later retention of related traces, a phenomenon known as retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF). Research has shown that episodic associations protect competing memories from RIF (Anderson & McCulloch, 1999). We report 4 experiments that examined whether semantic associations also protect against RIF. In all experiments, robust RIF occurred when there were few associations between practiced and nonpracticed sets, but RIF was abolished when there were many. The benefits of semantic integration were independent of episodic integration strategies and were not mediated by intentional use of the associations. Rather, these results establish a new boundary condition on RIF-semantic integration-that has a potent impact on the magnitude of RIF and may explain variability in the RIF phenomenon.

Measuring lexical knowledge poses a challenge to the study of the influence of preexisting knowledge on the retrieval of new memories. Many tasks focus on word pairs, but words are embedded in associative networks, so how should preexisting pair strength be measured? It has been measured by free association, similarity ratings, and co-occurrence statistics. Researchers interpret free association response probabilities as unbiased estimates of forward cue-to-target strength. In Study 1, analyses of large free association and extralist cued recall databases indicate that this interpretation is incorrect. Competitor and backward strengths bias free association probabilities, and as with other recall tasks, preexisting strength is described by a ratio rule. In Study 2, associative similarity ratings are predicted by forward and backward, but not by competitor, strength. Preexisting strength is not a unitary construct, because its measurement varies with method. Furthermore, free association probabilities predict extralist cued recall better than do ratings and co-occurrence statistics. The measure that most closely matches the criterion task may provide the best estimate of the identity of preexisting strength.

This paper reports the results of manipulations of word features for the magnitude of priming effects. In Experiment 1, the printed frequency of the target words and the number of connections among their associates were varied, and during testing participants were given cues and asked to produce the first word to come to mind as rapidly as possible in implicit free association. Priming effects were greater for lowfrequency words and for those with many connections among their associates.In Experiments 2 and 3, target words were presented under incidental or intentional learning conditions during study, and the presence of direct preexisting connections from targetto cue and from cue to targetwas varied. Priming effects were greater when either connection was present, with each connection having additive effects. In Experiments 4 and 5, priming effects for indirect links (shared associatesand mediators) were examined. The results of these experiments indicate that priming in free association depends on both the general accessibility of the target as a response and the strengthening of direct target-to-cue connections. These findings raise problems for theories that attribute priming only to target accessibility or only to target-to-cue association.

The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of a positive psychology course on student well-being, depressive symptoms, and stress in a repeated measure, nonequivalent control design. As hypothesized, the positive psychology students reported higher overall happiness, life satisfaction, routes to happiness, and lower depressive symptoms and stress compared to students in the control course. These findings replicate previous research on the benefits of positive psychology courses on well-being and extend previous research by showing that the benefits generalize to other reliable and multidimensional measures of happiness as well as measures of depression and stress. Our results indicate that a positive psychology course may be one way to improve students’ mental health.

Two experiments examined how cross-list directional associations influenced list-method directed forgetting and the degree of interference observed on each list. Each List 1 item had a (a) bidirectionally related item on List 2 (chip <----> potato), (b) forward association with an item on List 2 (chip --> wood), (c) backward association from an item on List 2 (chip <-- chisel), or (d) no relationship with List 2 items. The results revealed that associative relationships that eliminated retroactive interference in the baseline condition also eliminated the directed forgetting costs. In contrast, associative relationships did not affect List 2 recall in the forget group, which remained unchanged across experimental conditions. However, certain conditions reduced proactive interference in the remember group, thereby eliminating the benefits of directed forgetting. The directed forgetting costs and benefits were observed independently of each other. The authors propose that these effects emerged from a combination of item and context strengthening induced by different associative directions.

Sometimes in conversation, something is said that causes us to want to comment, but before our impending but implicit thoughts can be expressed, the conversation is disrupted. Later, we cannot recall what we wanted to say, but still later, we can. We used the extralist cuing task to model this phenomenon, and across experiments we varied the strength, direction, and directness of the relationship between the retrieval cues and the targeted information. Disruption was varied by switching attention to a different task before testing and by changing the testing context. Such disruptions reduced recall for the target and its implicitly activated memories. Following a disruption, stronger cues that were related to the target or to both the target and its implicit memories were more effective than those that were related to implicit memories. The findings were consistent with a model of long-term working memory that attributes forgetting to a loss of access to what has been activated, which loss is relative to the strength of the retrieval cue. Decay alone does not explain the results, indicating that many models of working memory need to be revised to take the nature of retrieval cues into account.

Previous research has explored how the content of landscape photography (i.e., natural vs. human-made) and postmanipulation of photographs (e.g., clarity and color) can influence aesthetic judgments. Although natural landscapes are reliably rated as more likable compared with human-made landscapes, very little is known about combined natural and human-made landscapes that depict alterations of the natural world by human interventions. After categorizing the works of Edward Burtynsky as “combined” landscapes along a continuum between natural and human-made landscape photographs, participants rated the likability and familiarity (i.e., whether landscapes were previously viewed or not) of all three types of images in a series of three experiments that measured likability and familiarity differences as a function of landscape type (Experiment 1), postmanipulation of color (Experiment 2), and postmanipulation of image clarity (Experiment 3). Natural photographs were rated significantly higher than all other photograph types (regardless of color or clarity manipulation), and combined photographs were significantly rated the lowest in all experimental conditions, especially those that were previously viewed. Across all conditions, previously viewed photographs were reliably discriminated from those that were not. The results suggest that the combined Burtynsky photographs fall outside a continuum of likability between natural and human-made extremes, and such a low aesthetic rating of previously viewed combined photographs may be because of negative social priming, an altered fluency processing, or both.