Continuing Influences of To-Be-Forgotten Information

Bjork, Elizabeth Ligon; Bjork, Robert A.

doi:10.1006/ccog.1996.0011

Cited by 189 publications

(271 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…A strategy-based account of directed forgetting benefits As stated in the introduction, the benefits of directed forgetting have been attributed to the escape from proactive interference in the forget group (Bjork & Bjork, 1996;Bjork & Woodward, 1973;Sahakyan & Kelley, in press). However, the results of our experiments showed that only those participants that switched from a shallow to a deep encoding strategy actually escaped from proactive interference (Experiment 2).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, directed forgetting benefits are said to be due to the reduction or escape from proactive interference in the forget group (Bjork & Bjork, 1996;Bjork & Woodward, 1973;Sahakyan & Kelley, in press). However, benefits might actually be due to a combination of shallow and deep encoding strategies that produce a recall level that is comparable to the recall of a no-proactive interference group-even though each individual member of the forget group suffers from proactive interference.…”

Section: Encoding Strategies In Directed Forgettingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Can encoding differences explain the benefits of directed forgetting in the list method paradigm?

Sahakyan

Delaney

2003

Journal of Memory and Language

138

189

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Encoding Strategies In Directed Forgettingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can encoding differences explain the benefits of directed forgetting in the list method paradigm?

Sahakyan

Delaney

2003

Journal of Memory and Language

138

189

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“…Therefore, the benefits, which are often attributed to the escape from proactive interference by the forget group (e.g., E. L. Bjork & Bjork, 1996), are more likely to emerge under the conditions that permit sufficient accumulation of proactive interference in the remember group (i.e., longer lists).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, E. L. Bjork and Bjork (1996) proposed that the forget group escapes from proactive interference that normally accumulates on List 2 in the remember group. It seems possible that in the remember group the proactive interference does not accumulate as fast with short lists in recognition performance.…”

Section: Alternative Explanationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Directed Forgetting in Incidental Learning and Recognition Testing: Support for a Two-Factor Account.

Sahakyan¹,

Delaney²

2005

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cogni

125

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Abstract:Instructing people to forget a list of items often leads to better recall of subsequently studied lists (known as the benefits of directed forgetting). The authors have proposed that changes in study strategy are a central cause of the benefits (L. Sahakyan & P. F. Delaney, 2003). The authors address 2 results from the literature that are inconsistent with their strategy-based explanation: (a) the presence of benefits under incidental learning conditions and (b) the absence of benefits in recognition testing. Experiment 1 showed that incidental learning attenuated the benefits compared with intentional learning, as expected if a change of study strategy causes the benefits. Experiment 2 demonstrated benefits using recognition testing, albeit only when longer lists were used. Memory for source in directed forgetting was also explored using multinomial modeling. Results are discussed in terms of a 2-factor account of directed forgetting. Key words: directed forgetting, intentional forgetting, study strategies, multinomial modeling, inhibition Article:When people find out that they are talking to a memory specialist, they often ask about how to improve their memories and how to remember more effectively. The irony of this is that people should perhaps be interested in how to forget things better in order to improve memory, as it appears that forgetting often leads to better memory (R. A. Bjork, 1989).One way to study the linkage between forgetting and learning is to ask people to forget something they have just studied-a procedure known as directed forgetting. A forget instruction can be delivered either after each item (known as the item method) or after a block of items (known as the list method). These two methodologies were shown to have different underlying mechanisms, with the item method reflecting encoding phenomena (better encoding of forget vs. remember items), and the list method most likely reflecting retrieval phenomena (e.g., Basden, Basden, & Gargano, 1993;R. A. Bjork, 1989). The current article focuses on the list method of directed forgetting because the mechanism underlying this phenomenon has created a variety of theoretical viewpoints as opposed to the mechanism supporting the item method. (For a more complete review of directed forgetting and related procedures such as specific intentional forgetting, see H. Johnson, 1994, or MacLeod, 1998 A typical list method directed forgetting study presents participants with two word lists to study. Between administration of the two lists, the experimenter instructs half of the participants to forget the first list and the  We are grateful to Xiangen Hu and William Batchelder for their help with the GPT.EXE software and multinomial models in general. Thanks also go to Kathryn Hughes, Kristin Kukharenko, Ryan Lobo, and Isabel Manzano for their help in data collection and scoring.

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“…This idea acknowledges the fact that directed forgetting is usually found in recall tasks but not in recognition tasks (Bjork, 1989), and that forgetting can be eliminated once the original encoding context gets reactivated (Bjork and Bjork, 1996;Samenieh, 2010, 2012). An analogy might be that, after directed forgetting, the files are still present on the hard disk, but the paths are temporarily lost.…”

mentioning

confidence: 86%

Prefrontally Driven Downregulation of Neural Synchrony Mediates Goal-Directed Forgetting

et al. 2012

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Neural synchronization between distant cell assemblies is crucial for the formation of new memories. To date, however, it remains unclear whether higher-order brain regions can adaptively regulate neural synchrony to control memory processing in humans. We explored this question in two experiments using a voluntary forgetting task. In the first experiment, we simultaneously recorded electroencephalography along with fMRI. The results show that a reduction in neural synchrony goes hand-in-hand with a BOLD signal increase in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) when participants are cued to forget previously studied information. In the second experiment, we directly stimulated the left dlPFC with repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation during the same task, and show that such stimulation specifically boosts the behavioral forgetting effect and induces a reduction in neural synchrony. These results suggest that prefrontally driven downregulation of long-range neural synchronization mediates goal-directed forgetting of long-term memories.

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Continuing Influences of To-Be-Forgotten Information

Cited by 189 publications

References 25 publications

Can encoding differences explain the benefits of directed forgetting in the list method paradigm?

Can encoding differences explain the benefits of directed forgetting in the list method paradigm?

Directed Forgetting in Incidental Learning and Recognition Testing: Support for a Two-Factor Account.

Prefrontally Driven Downregulation of Neural Synchrony Mediates Goal-Directed Forgetting

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