Evidence Against Associative Blocking as a Cause of Cue-Independent Retrieval-Induced Forgetting

Abstract

Selectively retrieving an item from long-term memory reduces the accessibility of competing traces, a phenomenon known as retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF). RIF exhibits cue independence, or the tendency for forgetting to generalize to novel test cues, suggesting an inhibitory basis for this phenomenon. An alternative view (Camp, Pecher, & Schmidt, 2007; Camp et al., 2009; Perfect et al., 2004) suggests that using novel test cues to measure cue independence actually engenders associative interference when participants covertly supplement retrieval with practiced cues that then associatively block retrieval. Accordingly, the covert-cueing hypothesis assumes that the relative strength of the practiced items at final test – and not the inhibition levied on the unpracticed items during retrieval practice – underlies cue-independent forgetting. As such, this perspective predicts that strengthening practiced items by any means, even if not via retrieval practice, should induce forgetting. Contrary to these predictions, however, we present clear evidence that cue-independent forgetting is induced by retrieval practice and not by repeated study exposures. This dissociation occurred despite significant, comparable levels of strengthening of practiced items in each case, and despite the use of Anderson and Spellman's original (1995) independent probe method criticized by covert-cueing theorists as being especially conducive to associative blocking. These results demonstrate that cue-independent RIF is unrelated to the strengthening of practiced items, and thereby fail to support a key prediction of the covert-cueing hypothesis. The results, instead, favor a role of inhibition in resolving retrieval interference.

Providing corrective feedback during retrieval practice does not increase retrieval-induced forgetting

“…More broadly, our data contributes to the current debate about whether retrieval-induced forgetting is better accounted for by interference or inhibition (e.g., Hulbert, Shivde, & Anderson, 2012;Raaijmakers & Jakab, 2013;Storm & Levy, 2012;Verde, 2012). According to both inhibition and interference theorists, retrieval practice directly enhances representation of the tested items.…”

Recognition-induced forgetting is not due to category-based set size

“…This property refers to the idea that the degree to which practiced items are strengthened is not predictive of the degree of retrieval-induced forgetting (e.g., previous work on retrievalinduced forgetting has also dissociated the size of the remembering and forgetting effects of retrieval practice; Aslan & Bäuml, 2011;Hanslmayr, Staudigl, Aslan, & Bäuml, 2010;Hulbert, Shivde, & Anderson, 2012;Kuhl, Dudukovic, Kahn, & Wagner, 2007;Macrae & MacLeod, 1999;. Such strength independence is mimicked herein as increased memory for practiced objects was not directly predictive of forgetting of related objects, consistent with work by Norman and colleagues suggesting that moderate activation of a memory is sufficient for weakening of that memory representation, irrespective of the strength of competing items (Detre, Natarajan, Gershman, & Norman, 2013;Poppenk & Norman, 2014).…”

Retrieval induces forgetting, but only when nontested items compete for retrieval: Implication for interference, inhibition, and context reinstatement.

“…For example, one method to examine competition dependence is to compare strengthening of the Rp+ items by retrieval practice or by restudying (Ciranni & Shimamura, 1999;Gómez-Ariza, Fernandez, & Bajo, 2012;Hulbert et al, 2012;Jonker et al, 2013;Verde, 2013). The logic is that strengthening Rp+ items by study repetitions should not produce retrieval-induced forgetting because Rp-items would not compete, whereas strengthening based on retrieval practice should produce retrieval-induced forgetting.…”