“Be careful what you recall”: Retrieval-induced forgetting of genuine real-life autobiographical memories

Abstract

Which episodes from our lives will be remembered and which will be forgotten, and why? This question has still not been answered satisfactorily by research into autobiographical memory. Previous work has shown that retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) might be a factor responsible for forgetting parts of the autobiographical memory content. However, none of the previous studies assessed RIF in memories for recent, controlled, personal events. We report here the results of an experiment in which autobiographical memories of real-life events were induced in a controlled, but fully naturalistic, manner, under the disguise of team-building exercises, while an adapted RIF paradigm was applied to these memories. Results clearly showed the influence of RIF on auto-biographical memory retrieval. These findings demonstrate conclusively that RIF occurs in everyday life when remembering personal events.

Effortful Retrieval of Semantic Memories Induces Forgetting of Related Negative and Neutral Episodic Memories

“…Beyond PTSD, semantic retrieval methods of RIF may be appropriate for patients with other mental health conditions (e.g., depression) as well as in healthy individuals coping with everyday negative incidents. Several studies indicate that RIF can be used to induce forgetting of neutral and emotional autobiographical memories, providing more naturalistic evidence for the translation of RIF into real-world therapy (Barnier et al, 2004;Hauer & Wessel, 2006;Harris et al, 2010;Somos et al, 2022). Our results suggest that forgetting may be attainable through neutral semantic retrieval, which would be beneficial as the retrieval of any part of the original emotional memory, or other negative memories, would not be required.…”