Intent matters: Resolving the intentional versus incidental learning paradox in episodic long-term memory.

Abstract

Decades of research have established that the intent to remember information has no effect on episodic long-term memory. This claim, which is routinely taught in introductory cognitive psychology courses, is based entirely on pure-list between-subjects designs in which memory performance is equal for intentional and incidental learning groups. In the current 11 experiments, participants made semantic judgements about each word in a list but they had to remember only words presented in a specific color. We demonstrate that in such mixed-list designs there is a substantial difference between intentionally and incidentally learned items. The first four experiments show that this finding is independent of the remember cue onset relative to the semantic judgment. The remaining seven experiments test alternative explanations as to why intent only matters in mixed-list designs but not in pure-list designs-inhibition of incidentally learned items, output interference, selective relational encoding, or selective thresholdshifting. We found substantial support for the threshold-shifting account according to which the intent to remember boosts item-context associations in both mixed-and pure-list designs; however, in pure-list between-subjects designs, participants in the incidental learning group can use a lower retrieval threshold to compensate for the weaker memory traces. This led to more extralist intrusions in incidental learning groups; incidental learning groups also showed a source memory deficit. We conclude that intent always matters for long-term learning, but that the effect is masked in traditional between-subjects designs. Our results suggest that researchers need to rethink the role of intent in long-term memory.

The role of intentionality in memory and learning: Comments on Popov and Dames (2022).

“…As pointed out by Popov and Dames (2022), many previously published experiments have shown that when words are processed by an incidental semantic processing task, subsequent recall levels are not increased by the addition of intentional learning instructions (Hyde & Jenkins, 1969, Experiments 1, 2, and 3; Hyde & Jenkins, 1973; Johnston & Jenkins, 1971; Oberauer & Greve, 2022, Experiments 1, 2, and 3; Postman & Adams, 1956), or in comparison with a group whose task is simply to learn the list (Hyde, 1973; Till et al, 1975). In the same vein, Evans and Baddeley (2018) compared groups of participants who either performed an orienting task on each of a series of scenes, or were additionally instructed to learn the scenes for a later memory test.…”

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This commentary is a reply to the article "Intent matters: Resolving the intentional versus incidental learning paradox in episodic long-term memory" by Popov and Dames (2022). In their article, the authors question the view that once adequate deep, elaborate, and organizational processes have been induced incidentally, the intention to learn adds nothing further to the level of subsequent retention.

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“…The article by Popov and Dames (2022), with its impressive set of experiments and ingenious theoretical arguments, makes an excellent contribution to the literature on episodic LTM. In particular, it highlights the importance of intentionality in studies of memory and learning.…”

Hard to forget: No Directed Forgetting of Stimulus-Response Associations

“…According to the specific impact account (Figure 2), representations integrated in an event-file could be selectively up-or downregulated without affecting the associative weights that bind stimulus features to response features in the same event-file. If so, this finding has profound implications for the recently raised question which processes allow for the top-down 2 Note, that a recent study could also show that the intention to remember strengthens itemcontext bindings (as compared to a process-only condition) even when using a deep semantic processing task similar to the one used in the present study (Popov & Dames, 2022; please note that there was however no forget instruction).…”

“…Adding to this initial research, a recent study demonstrated that the intention to remember creates stronger memory for the bindings between stimuli and their context even when using a deep semantic processing task (as compared to a process-only condition; Popov & Dames, 2022; please note that there was however no forget instruction). Therefore, for verbal material, there is some evidence that at least the intention to remember strengthens declarative bindings.…”