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

Abstract

In an item-method directed forgetting task, attentional resources are withdrawn from forget item processing (e.g., Taylor & Fawcett in Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 73, 1790-1814, 2011). Taylor and Hamm (Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 78, 168-186, 2016) demonstrated that there is no corresponding increase in the proclivity for exogenous attention to be captured following a forget instruction. This means either that the attentional resources withdrawn from the forget item are reallocated immediately (and therefore not especially vulnerable to capture) or that it is not exogenous attention that is withdrawn. Given that endogenous attention is distinct from exogenous attention, we therefore extended the Taylor and Hamm study by using endogenous orienting rather than exogenous orienting. Words appeared individually in a peripheral location (Exp. 1) or in a central location (Exp. 2), followed by an instruction to either remember or forget. After a short (50-ms) or long (250-ms) interstimulus interval (ISI), a central cue (80% accurate) directed participants to allocate their attention to the left or right. This was followed by a discrimination target that appeared at a 1,000-ms cue-target stimulus onset asynchrony. A subsequent yes-no recognition test assessed memory for all study items. In both experiments, we observed better recognition of remember words than forget words-a directed forgetting effect. We also found a cueing effect, revealed as faster reaction times to discriminate cued targets than to discriminate uncued targets. There was not, however, an effect of memory instruction (and/or instruction-cue ISI) on the magnitude of this cueing effect. Thus, neither exogenous attention nor endogenous attention remains in an unengaged state following an instruction to forget.

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

“…Reflecting the robust directed forgetting effect that occurred in each of Experiments 2-5, in this pooled data set there was very strong evidence for an effect of Memory Instruction, F(1, 202) = 277.76, MSE = 505.90, p < .01, ges = 0.29, pH1 > .99. Indeed, the overall hit rate was 49% for TBR items and 23% for TBF items, reflecting a directed forgetting effect of 26% (i.e., TBR-TBF), the magnitude of which is typical of other studies from our lab that have combined measures of attention and memory (e.g., range~12%-40%; see Fawcett & Taylor, 2008, 2012Rubinfeld, Taylor, & Hamm, 2019;Taylor, 2005;Taylor & Fawcett, 2011;Thompson et al, 2014). Critically, there was positive evidence against an interaction of Cue Condition with Memory Instruction, F(1, 202) < 1, MSE = 61.60, p > .38, ges < .01, pH0 = 0.91.…”

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).…”