Remembering to Forget

Abstract

Daydreaming mentally transports people to another place or time. Many daydreams are similar in content to the thoughts that people generate when they intentionally try to forget. Thus, thoughts like those generated during daydreaming can cause forgetting of previously encoded events. We conducted two experiments to test the hypothesis that daydreams that are more different from the current moment (e.g., in distance, time, or circumstance) will result in more forgetting than daydreams that are less different from the current moment, because they result in a greater contextual shift. Daydreaming was simulated in the laboratory via instructions to engage in a diversionary thought. Participants learned a list of words, were asked to think about autobiographical memories, and then learned a second list of words. They tended to forget more words from the first list when they thought about their parents' home than when they thought about their current home (Experiment 1). They also tended to forget more when they thought about an international vacation than when they thought about a domestic vacation (Experiment 2). These results support a context-change account of the amnesic effects of daydreaming.

Does Suicidal Ideation Influence Memory? A Study of the Role of Violent Daydreaming in the Relationship Between Suicidal Ideation and Everyday Memory

“…Mounting evidence suggests that daydreaming is associated with symptoms of suicidal ideation among those who are depressed (Selby et al, 2007) and forgetfulness (Delaney et al, 2010). This study was the first to examine how violent daydreaming and suicidal ideation may be related to everyday memory capability, specifically memory retrieval and encoding.…”

“…Evidence suggests that the act of daydreaming is associated with impairments in memory, including increased forgetfulness (Delaney, Sahakyan, Kelley, & Zimmerman, 2010). However, no studies, to our knowledge, have examined whether individuals with symptoms of suicidal ideation exhibit memory deficits and whether violent daydreaming may account for these deficits.…”

“…Research has shown that daydreaming is associated with increased forgetfulness (Delaney, Sahakyan, Kelley, & Zimmerman, 2010), which may result from difficulties with memory retrieval and encoding (Arnsten, 2005). Accordingly, daydreaming has also been linked to decreased attention (Smallwood, McSpadden, & Schooler, 2008), which is important for memory encoding, and the storage and subsequent retrieval of a memory (Arnsten, 2005).…”

Working memory capacity predicts the beneficial effect of selective memory retrieval

“…Participants in the no-context-change condition counted backwards from a three-digit number for 90 s. In contrast, participants in the context-change condition were asked to imagine two different scenarios in succession for 45 s each. In particular, they were instructed to imagine and describe orally (1) what they would do if they were invisible (e.g., Sahakyan & Kelley, 2002) and (2) what their last vacation abroad was like (Delaney, Sahakyan, Kelley, & Zimmerman, 2010). Following the interlist context manipulation, List 2 was presented analogous to List 1.…”

Exploring Mechanisms of Selective Directed Forgetting

“…Usually updating of information is specific and selectively targeted to the information that is no longer relevant, so that the correct instructions and information are kept in mind to be able to successfully perform the intended task. However, while many studies have sought to investigate how people intentionally forget information in a non-selective way (e.g., Conway et al, 2000; Sahakyan and Kelley, 2002; Sahakyan and Delaney, 2003; Delaney et al, 2010; Hanslmayr et al, 2012; Abel and Bäuml, 2016; Pastötter et al, 2016; for reviews, see also Bjork, 1998; Sahakyan et al, 2013; Anderson and Hanslmayr, 2014), it is only recently that deliberate selective forgetting has been the subject of investigation (Delaney et al, 2009; Gómez-Ariza et al, 2013; Kliegl et al, 2013; Storm et al, 2013; Aguirre et al, 2014). …”