Oh, honey, I already forgot that: Strategic control of directed forgetting in older and younger adults.

Abstract

Two experiments investigated list-method directed forgetting with older and younger adults. Using standard directed forgetting instructions, significant forgetting was obtained with younger but not older adults. However, in Experiment 1 older adults showed forgetting with an experimenterprovided strategy that induced a mental context change --specifically, engaging in diversionary thought. Experiment 2 showed that age related differences in directed forgetting occurred because older adults were less likely than younger adults to initiate a strategy to attempt to forget. When the instructions were revised to downplay their concerns about memory, older adults engaged in effective forgetting strategies and showed significant directed forgetting comparable in magnitude to younger adults. The results highlight the importance of strategic processes in directed forgetting.

Directed forgetting in young children: Evidence for a production deficiency

“…The one instruction (sometimes called the "whoops" procedure; see the Method section) provided a comprehensible rationale for the (unexpected) forget cue and placed high emphasis on the need to forget (high-emphasis condition); the other instruction did not provide a rationale for the forget cue and emphasis on the need to forget was relatively low (low-emphasis condition). On the basis of previous work (e.g., Sahakyan, Delaney, & Goodmon, 2008), we expected that the wording of the forget instruction would not affect young adults' performance, and that adults would show reliable DF in both the high-emphasis and the low-emphasis conditions. If young children suffered from a fundamental deficiency in the required processes, efficient DF should be absent in both the high-emphasis and low-emphasis condition.…”

Hyper-binding across time: Age differences in the effect of temporal proximity on paired-associate learning.

“…It has been argued that inhibition is needed to suppress previously, but no longer, relevant items from working memory so as to minimize interference within these tasks (Friedman & Miyake, 2004;Hasher et al, 1999;Kane, Conway, Hambrick, & Engle, 2007). Furthermore, numerous studies suggest that the ability to delete previously attended information shows a marked decline with age, as older adults' performance on these tasks is greatly improved by conditions that minimize the build-up of proactive interference (e.g., Lustig, May, & Hasher, 2001;May et al, 1999;Rowe, Hasher, & Turcotte, 2008Sahakyan, Delaney, & Goodmon, 2008).…”

Alexithymia impairs the cognitive control of negative material while facilitating the recall of neutral material in both younger and older adults

“…As we were interested in the latter form of cognitive control, we used the list method in our study. The list method (e.g., MacLeod, 1998MacLeod, , 1999Zellner & Bäuml, 2006) assesses cognitive control either through intentional efforts to remember and forget (see also Bjork, Bjork, & Anderson, 1998) or through efforts to change one's mental context (Sahakyan, Delaney, & Goodmon, 2008;Sahakyan & Foster, 2009;Sahakyan & Kelley, 2002). More specifically, it requires an intentional effort to control what is forgotten and what is remembered: participants must voluntarily not recall TBF items and voluntarily recall the TBR items (Bjork et al, 1998;Power et al, 2000).…”

“…memories (Dywan & Murphy, 1996;Hasher et al, 1999;Jacoby et al, 2005;Zacks et al, 1996;but see Castel, Farb, & Craik, 2007;Sahakyan et al, 2008). Alternatively, in terms of negative material, recent researchers have found what they term, a "positivity effect" (Charles et al, 2003;Mather & Carstensen, 2005;): older adults are better able to control and forget negative material, thereby facilitating emotional well-being (see also Castel et al, 2007).…”

“…This inhibition, according to the directsuppression model, is an executive control process whereby target items inhibited directly (Levy & Anderson, 2002). However, recent research suggests that the impaired recall of TBF items may better be framed in terms of context change (Sahakyan & Foster, 2009;Sahakyan & Kelley, 2002;Sahakyan et al, 2008). That is, the participants make a mental context change between items instructed to be forgotten and those instructed to be remembered.…”