Remember to blink: Reduced attentional blink following instructions to forget

Abstract

This study used rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) to determine whether, in an item-method directed forgetting task, study word processing ends earlier for forget words than for remember words. The critical manipulation required participants to monitor an RSVP stream of black nonsense strings in which a single blue word was embedded. The next item to follow the word was a string of red fs that instructed the participant to forget the word or green rs that instructed the participant to remember the word. After the memory instruction, a probe string of black xs or os appeared at postinstruction positions 1-8. Accuracy in reporting the identity of the probe string revealed an attenuated attentional blink following instructions to forget. A yes-no recognition task that followed the study trials confirmed a directed forgetting effect, with better recognition of remember words than forget words. Considered in the context of control conditions that required participants to commit either all or none of the study words to memory, the pattern of probe identification accuracy following the directed forgetting task argues that an intention to forget releases limited-capacity attentional resources sooner than an instruction to remember-despite participants needing to maintain an ongoing rehearsal set in both cases.

Selection for encoding: No evidence of better endogenous orienting following forget than following remember instructions

“…The implication is that the initial withdrawal of attention from forget item processing releases limited-capacity resources only long enough to stop unwanted forget item rehearsal before switching to cumulative rehearsal of previous-trial remember items. Indeed, this may account for the fact that the attentional blink-a deficit in second-target processing that follows firsttarget processing (e.g., Raymond, Shapiro, & Arnell, 1992)is smaller following a forget instruction than following a remember instruction, but only within a temporal window that extends 400-500 ms postinstruction (Taylor, 2018).…”

Intention matters more than attention: Item-method directed forgetting of items at attended and unattended locations

“…When participants implement instructions to remember and forget, they do so by leveraging attentional resources. Not only do they elaborate TBR items to commit them to memory, they also expend cognitive effort (Cheng et al, 2012 ; Fawcett & Taylor, 2008 ; Fawcett, Taylor, & Nadel, 2013 ; although see Tan, Ensor, Hockley, Harrison, & Wilson, 2020 ) to actively withdraw attention (Lee, 2018 ; Taylor, 2005 , 2018 ; Taylor & Fawcett, 2011 ; Thompson et al, 2014 ) from the representation of TBF items to cease unwanted item processing (Hourihan & Taylor, 2006 ). To the extent that successful control over long-term memory encoding thus depends on regulating attentional resources, it stands to reason that regulating attentional resources prior to study word onset might likewise influence the success of exerting subsequent intentional control over encoding.…”

“…Accordingly, the second principal outcome of our study is that it establishes the predominant direction of the relation between memory intentions and attentional allocation in an item-method directed forgetting task. To wit: The intention to remember and forget appears to influence the allocation of attentional resources (Fawcett & Taylor, 2010 ; Taylor, 2005 , 2018 ; Taylor & Fawcett, 2011 ; Thompson et al, 2014 ) and can interact with available processing time to influence the likelihood of successful forgetting (e.g., Hockley et al, 2016 ; Hourihan & Taylor, 2006 ); however, it appears that the prior allocation of attentional resources is not sufficient—in and of itself—to influence directed forgetting of supra-threshold stimuli.…”

Forgetting under difficult conditions: Item-method directed forgetting under perceptual processing constraints

“…This serves to stop ongoing covert rehearsal of the TBF item (e.g., Hourihan & Taylor, 2006), in a manner that is similareven if not identical )to the way in which executive control mechanisms are engaged to stop unwanted overt behaviour (e.g., Aron, Fletcher, Bullmore, Sahakian, & Robbins, 2003;Aron, Robbins, & Poldrack, 2004;Aron & Poldrack, 2006). Stopping unwanted TBF item rehearsal is therefore demanding of limited-capacity attentional resources in the short term but ultimately serves to release these attentional resources in the longer term (Popov, Marevic, Rummel, & Reder, 2019;Taylor, 2018), presumably for further TBR item processing and rehearsal (e.g., Rubinfeld, Taylor, & Hamm, 2019;Scholz & Dutke, 2019;Taylor & Hamm, 2016).…”