Does Amount of Pre-cue Encoding Modulate Selective List Method Directed Forgetting?

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Oliver Kliegl¹  Bernhard Pastötter²  Karl-Heinz T. Bäuml¹ 

[1] Department of Psychology, Regensburg University;Department of Psychology, University of Trier

关键词: episodic memory;    forgetting;    directed forgetting;    selectivity;    list length;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01403

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Prior work reported evidence that when people are presented with both a relatively short list of relevant information and a relatively short list of irrelevant information, a subsequent cue to forget the irrelevant list can induce successful selective directed forgetting of the irrelevant list without any forgetting of the relevant list. The goal of the present study is to determine whether this selectivity effect is restricted to short lists of information (six items per list), or if the effect generalizes to longer lists (12 items per list). In Experiment 1, we replicate the finding that selective directed forgetting can occur when short lists of relevant and irrelevant information are involved. Going beyond this replication, we show in Experiment 2 that such selectivity can arise both when shorter and when relatively long lists of items are used. The results are consistent with the view that selective directed forgetting can result from the action of a flexible inhibitory mechanism. They are less well in line with the view that selective cues to forget pre-cue information induce a change in participants' mental context.

【 授权许可】

CC BY