Item-Cued Directed Forgetting of Related Words and Pictures in Children and Adults: Selective Rehearsal Versus Cognitive Inhibition

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to compare the relative importance of selective rehearsal and cognitive inhibition in accounting for developmental changes in the directed-forgetting paradigm developed by R. A. Bjork (1972). In two experiments, children in Grades 2 and 5 and college students were asked to remember some words or pictures and to forget others when items were categorically related. Their memory for both items and the associated remember or forget cues was then tested with recall and recognition. Fifth graders recognized more of the forget-cued words than college students did. The pattern of results suggested that age differences in rehearsal and source monitoring (i.e., remembering whether a word had been cued remember or forget) were better explanatory mechanisms for children's forgetting inefficiencies than retrieval inhibition was. The results are discussed in terms of a multiple process view of inhibition.

‘Forget me (not)?’ – Remembering Forget-Items Versus Un-Cued Items in Directed Forgetting

“…This typically leads to a DF effect, better memory for TBR than for TBF. The effect is apparent both in recall and recognition ( Basden and Basden, 1996 ) and has been shown for a variety of materials ( Lehman et al, 2001 ; Hourihan and Taylor, 2006 ; Hauswald and Kissler, 2008 ; Hourihan et al, 2009 ; Quinlan et al, 2010 ; Nowicka et al, 2011 ; Zwissler et al, 2011 ).…”

Directed Forgetting of Related Words: Evidence for the Inefficient Inhibition Hypothesis

“…The results of the only investigation of the effects of related words on directed forgetting in children did not show any effect of cue combination, either in fifth graders or in college students (Lehman, McKinley-Pace, Leonard, Thompson, & Johns, 2001). Of interest, however, was the finding that children recognized more forget-cued words than did adults, a finding that is unique in the directed-forgetting literature.…”

The Role of Faces in Item Method Directed Forgetting

“…Although a significant directed forgetting effect occurred for words as well as line-drawings, the magnitude of the directed forgetting effect was smaller for line-drawings compared to words. Similarly, Hauswald and Kissler (2008) used complex pictures from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS; Lang, et al 2005) database in a standard item-method directed forgetting paradigm and found that the magnitude of the directed forgetting effect was smaller for complex IAPS pictures compared to line-drawings (e.g., Lehman, McKinley-Pace, Leonard, Thompson, & Johns, 2001). Together, these findings suggest that as the visual complexity of a stimulus increases, the magnitude of the directed forgetting effect decreases.…”