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

Abstract

This meta-analysis examines the effects of aging on directed forgetting. A cue to forget is more effective in younger (d = 1.17) than in older adults (d = 0.81). Directed-forgetting effects were larger: (a) with the item method rather than the list method; (b) with longer presentation times; (c) with longer postcue rehearsal times; (d) with single words rather than 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.In this paper, we provide a meta-analytic overview of studies of aging and directed forgetting. The term forgetting often has a negative connotation, especially in the context of aging. Forgetting, however, is not always a failure of memory -sometimes forgetting is desirable. Imagine, for instance, that one of your colleagues has recently remarried, and you welcome her husband with the name of the man she just divorced. When performed intentionally, forgetting may prevent outdated information from interfering with the encoding and retrieval of currently relevant information. The experimental paradigm used most often to study intentional forgetting in episodic memory is the directed-forgetting paradigm (for reviews, see Johnson, 1994, andMacLeod, 1998). In the directed-forgetting paradigm, participants are presented with a set of items, some of which are cued to be remembered for a later memory test (these are labelled TBR items) and others that are cued to be forgotten (TBF items). Memory is unexpectedly tested for all items and is usually worse for TBF than TBR items.Directed forgetting has initially received some attention in the field of cognitive aging due to its ties to an inhibition account of age-related changes in memory (Hasher & Zacks, 1988;Hasher, Zacks, & May, 1999;Zacks, Radvansky, & Hasher, 1996;Zacks & Hasher, 1994). The inhibition theory claims that older adults have difficulties in inhibiting the processing of goal-irrelevant information (e.g., TBF-items). There are, however, several inhibitory and noninhibitory explanations of directed forgetting pointing at differences between cueing methods used in a study (Basden, Basden, & Gargano, 1993;Sahakyan & Foster, 2009 NIH-PA Author ManuscriptA cue to forget can be applied either on an item-by-item basis, that is, each word is individually cued as TBF or TBR, or to a whole list or block of items at once. In list-method studies a first list is presented followed by either a cue to forget or a cue to continue remembering this first list while studying a second list (Bjork, 1972;Block, 1971;Elmes, Adams, & Roediger, 1970;Muther, 1965). In item-method studies, the directed-forgetting effect usually refers to a within-subjects comparison; recall of TBF items is lower than recall of TBR items. In listmethod studies the directed-forgetting effect usually refers to a between-subjects comparison; forget-cue participants typically show impaired Li...

Listwise directed forgetting is present in young-old adults, but is absent in old-old adults.

“…In the remember condition, subjects were told that the preceding items were the first part of the study list and should be kept in mind while studying the second part. To ensure task engagement in the critical forget condition, we used a forget instruction that provided ' Titz and Verhaeghen (2010) reported significant forgetting in older adults, with the magnitude of the effect being slightly reduced compared with young adults (p = .08). Because the analysis included the Zacks et al (1996) results, which showed reduced forgetting for older adults but suffered from a floor effect (see previous discussion), it may have overestimated the age-related difference.…”

The Effects of an Afternoon Nap on Episodic Memory in Young and Older Adults

“…[18][19][20] In the item-wise directed forgetting procedure, participants are presented with a series of words and instructed to selectively remember some studied words and forget other studied words. [21][22][23] Our rationale for using the directed forgetting procedure was to assess whether memory consolidation is driven by the selective reactivation of future-relevant memories.…”

The role of warnings in younger and older adults’ retrieval-induced forgetting

“…However, a number of studies have provided evidence that a distinction must be made between intentional (i.e., effortful) and unintentional (i.e., automatic) inhibitory processes (Anderson, 2005;Andreś, Guerrini, Phillips, & Perfect, 2008;Conway & Fthenaki, 2003;Hogge et al, 2008). Age-related deficits are frequently observed in tasks that require intentional inhibitory processes, such as in Stroop (Hartman & Hasher, 1991;Spieler, Balota, & Faust, 1996) and directed forgetting tasks (Titz & Verhaeghen, 2010;Zacks, Radvansky, & Hasher, 1996). In contrast, a growing body of research points to the absence of age differences in tasks that tap unintentional inhibitory control (Aslan, Bauml, & Pastotter, 2007;Hogge et al, 2008).…”