Too hard to forget? ERPs to remember, forget, and uninformative cues in the encoding phase of item‐method directed forgetting

Abstract

In item-method directed forgetting, worse memory performance occurs for to-be-forgotten (TBF) than for to-be-remembered (TBR) items. However, recently TBF items have been found to be recognized more accurately than uninformative (UI) items not associated with any specific task. Here, we compare ERPs elicited by cues signaling the remember or the forget instruction with those elicited by uninformative cues. Participants were presented with a series of complex pictures, each followed by a symbolic TBR, TBF, or UI cue. On a yes-no recognition test, accuracy was higher for TBR than for both TBF and UI items. However, TBF items were recognized more accurately than UI items. ERPs elicited by the TBR cue were larger than ERPs elicited by both TBF and UI cues at the frontal P2, the late frontal negativity, and the late parietal positivity complex. This is consistent with more attention capture, selective rehearsal, and long-term memory encoding of TBR. In contrast, both TBF and UI cues induced a larger frontal N2 than TBR cues. Critically, TBF elicited a larger late right-frontal positivity than both UI and TBR cues and a larger late parietal positivity than UI cues. Moreover, the late right-frontal positivity was correlated with better recognition performance. It may therefore reflect processing orientation rather than inhibition per se. Results suggest that, when compared to UI cues, both TBR and TBF cues are processed actively. Distinct processing is seen at right frontal and centroparietal positive ERPs that may mediate better subsequent recognition of TBF than of UI items.

Forgetting positive social feedback is difficult: ERP evidence in a directed forgetting paradigm

“…Moreover, during the memory control stage of negative feedback, we found that TBF items elicited larger cue-evoked N2 (i.e., cognitive control) while TBR items elicited larger cue-evoked LPP (i.e., in-depth encoding and elaboration). These ERP results are consistent with the typical ERP patterns associated with DF effect (Bailey & Chapman, 2012;Cheng et al, 2012;Gao et al, 2016;Hauswald et al, 2010;Hsieh et al, 2009;Patrick et al, 2015;Paz-Caballero et al, 2004;Schindler & Kissler, 2018;van Hooff & Ford, 2011;Xie et al, 2018;Yang et al, 2012). Based on these ERP findings, we tentatively propose that, people can voluntarily employ inhibitory control processes to limit the encoding of unwanted memories (in this study, negative social feedback), which then facilitated the forgetting of these unwanted memories (Anderson & Hanslmayr, 2014).…”

“…However, it should be noted that although the N2 component has widely been associated with inhibitory control of TBF items in the DF procedure (Anderson & Hanslmayr, 2014; Liu et al., 2020), there are also findings suggesting that the N2 reflects other cognitive processes rather than inhibition (e.g., conflict resolution or information discarding of TBF items; Schindler & Kissler, 2018). Furthermore, when considering the intrinsic tendency of mnemic neglect in healthy populations, we propose that it is possible the observed DF effect for negative social feedback mainly resulted from selective rehearsal of TBR items rather than the inhibitory control of TBF ones.…”

“…However, the key role of frontal‐parietal regions in directed forgetting has been widely documented with the prosperity of neuroimaging studies; these findings support an inhibitory control mechanism, that is, forgetting is a process including active limitation of unwanted information during encoding period (Bastin et al., 2012; Gamboa et al., 2018; Nowicka et al., 2010; Rizio & Dennis, 2013; Wylie et al., 2008; Xie et al., 2020). Evidence from event‐related potential (ERP) studies also consistently shows that “forget” instructions elicit a larger N2 component than “remember” instructions, which possibly reflects cognitive control efforts (Brandt et al., 2013; Cheng et al., 2012; Gao et al., 2016; Hauswald et al., 2010; Hsieh et al., 2009; Liu et al., 2017; Paz‐Caballero et al., 2004; Schindler & Kissler, 2018; van Hooff & Ford, 2011; Xie et al., 2018; Yang et al., 2012). To summarize, using nonsocial materials, studies have robustly demonstrated an important role of inhibitory control in voluntary forgetting of unwanted information during encoding stage.…”

“…The “forget” cue usually evokes larger N2 amplitudes (more negative‐going potentials) than the “remember” cue, which reflects the inhibitory control process that truncates the encoding of unwanted information (Gao et al., 2016; Hsieh et al., 2009; Patrick et al., 2015; Xie et al., 2018; Yang et al., 2012). In contrast, the “remember” cue usually elicits larger LPP amplitudes than the “forget” cue, which indicates selective rehearsal or sustained processing of TBR information (Bailey & Chapman, 2012; Cheng et al., 2012; Hauswald et al., 2010; Hsieh et al., 2009; Paz‐Caballero et al., 2004; Schindler & Kissler, 2018; van Hooff & Ford, 2011). It has been demonstrated that both motivated inhibition and reduced selected rehearsal contribute to successful directed forgetting (Hauswald et al., 2010).…”

A computational model of item-based directed forgetting.

“…Throughout this article, we have F-cued encoding as an attenuation of encoding rather than an erasure of memory. That perspective is consistent with recent studies employing "no cue" or "uninformative cue" (cue without an instruction to remember or forget) conditions that have found that compared to noncued targets, F-cued targets are remembered either equally as well (Ahmad et al, 2019;Tan et al, 2020) or better (Gao et al, 2016(Gao et al, , 2019Schindler & Kissler, 2018;Zwissler et al, 2015; though see DIRECTED FORGETTING 2009;Taylor et al, 2018). Given that's the case, our model appears in line with empirical wisdom.…”