The effects of context in item-based directed forgetting: Evidence for “one-shot” context storage

Abstract

The effects of context on item-based directed forgetting were assessed. Study words were presented against different background pictures and were followed by a cue to remember (R) or forget (F) the target item. The effects of incidental and intentional encoding of context on recognition of the study words were examined in Experiments 1 and 2. Recognition memory for the picture contexts was assessed in Experiments 3a and 3b. Recognition was greater for R-cued compared to F-cued targets, demonstrating an effect of directed forgetting. In contrast, no directed forgetting effect was seen for the background pictures. An effect of context-dependent recognition was seen in Experiments 1 and 2, such that the hit rate and the false-alarm rate were greater for items tested in an old compared to a novel context. An effect of context-dependent discrimination was also observed in Experiment 2 as the hit rate was greater for targets shown in their same old study context compared to a different old context. The effects of context and directed forgetting did not interact. The results are consistent with Malmberg and Shiffrin's (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 31, 322-336, 2005) Bone-shot^context storage hypothesis that assumes that a fixed amount of context is stored in the first 1 to 2 s of the presentation of the study item. The effects of context are independent of item-based directed forgetting because context is encoded prior to the R or F cue, and the differential processing of target information that gives rise to the directed forgetting effect occurs after the cue.

Intent Matters: Resolving the Intentional vs Incidental Learning Paradox in Episodic Long-term Memory

“…At first glance, the finding that the intention to remember affected item-context bindings seems to contradict a recent study by Burgess et al (2017) where Directed Forgetting did not affect context information. Burgess et al (2017) presented words against different background pictures of landscapes which were then followed by a remember or a forget instruction.…”

“…At first glance, the finding that the intention to remember affected item-context bindings seems to contradict a recent study by Burgess et al (2017) where Directed Forgetting did not affect context information. Burgess et al (2017) presented words against different background pictures of landscapes which were then followed by a remember or a forget instruction. The authors demonstrated Directed Forgetting effects for the target items (the words; recognition for To-beremembered words was better than for To-be-forgotten words) but not the background pictures.…”

Modeling list-strength and spacing effects using version 3 of the retrieving effectively from memory (REM.3) model and its superimposition-of-similar-images assumption

“…The parameters were g base = 0.4, g draw = 0.38, w = 20, u 1 = 0.28, u 2 = 0.12, c = 0.7, and criterion test = 1. spaced strengthening but not massed strengthening. They explained this using the one-shot hypothesis of context storage, according to which a maximum amount of context information can be stored during any given study trial (see also Burgess, Hockley, & Hourihan, 2017). Consequently, presenting an item for 2 or 6 s will result in the same amount of context information being stored.…”

3D Virtual World BPM Training Systems: Process Gateway Experimental Results

“…In addition, there has been extensive research on the role of context in recall and recognition [12,13] under a number of contexts such as cued recognition and forget scenarios. These studies suggest that the brain uses the 1-2 seconds in a recall task to store the existing contextual information [14], indicating that viewing scenes in a VW environment may utilize context effects without any the for lengthy viewing. Several knowledge acquisition and training approaches utilize the method of loci [15,16].…”

“…The same avatar is depicted when a role is engaged in another activity, and the same desk space is used for the individual tasks s/he performs. In this way, the concepts of visual context and spatial location are used to embody real life concepts and implement visual priming to enhance recall [14]. Other process elements such as IT systems and data elements are represented in an abstract form based on BPMN-style notational elements, since these elements do not have any physical discriminatory characteristics.…”