Responsible remembering and forgetting as contributors to memory for important information

Abstract

The ability to control both what we remember and what is forgotten can enhance memory. The present study used an item-method directed forgetting paradigm to investigate whether participants strategically remembered items they were responsible for remembering rather than items a hypothetical friend was responsible for remembering. Specifically, participants were presented with a 20-word list (either unrelated words or items to pack for a camping trip) with each word followed by a cue indicating whether the participant (You) or their “friend” (Friend) was responsible for remembering the word. When asked to recall all of the words, regardless of the cue, recall was sensitive to the You and Friend instructions such that participants demonstrated elevated recall for the items they were responsible for remembering, and participants also strategically organized retrieval by recalling You items before Friend items. Additionally, when asked to judge the importance of remembering each item, participants’ recall and recognition were sensitive to item importance regardless of cue. Taken together, the present experiments revealed that the strategic encoding of important information and the forgetting of less important, goal-irrelevant information can maximize memory utility and minimize negative consequences for forgetting. Thus, we provide evidence for a metacognitive process we are calling responsible forgetting, where people attempt to forget less consequential information and focus on remembering what is most important.

The effect of perceptual processing fluency and value on metacognition and remembering

“…Participants' prioritization of high-value words compared to low-value words, as well as their metacognitive awareness of such selectivity, is consistent with the notion of responsible remembering: how our memory allows for the strategic allocation of attention toward important information to avoid consequences for forgetting (Murphy & Castel, 2020, 2021a, 2021b. The present results provide some novel insight regarding how participants may (accurately) prioritize point value (an extrinsic cue) in the presence of competing cues such as perceptual processing fluency.…”

“…However, the present study suggests that this valuable information can still be well remembered, despite being less fluent (see also Hargis & Castel, 2018). Again, this exemplifies responsible remembering such that people can overcome memory obstacles and engage in strategic metacognitive mechanisms to better remember information that might be important later or with potential consequences if forgotten (see Murphy & Castel, 2021a, 2021b.…”

“…When faced with multiple cues at encoding, if participants show a weak relationship between what they expect to remember and later recall, this metacognitive disconnect could result in the forgetting of valuable information. Rather than incorporating a single cue such as processing fluency or value in their metacognitive monitoring judgments, participants should engage in responsible remembering (see Murphy & Castel, 2020, 2021a, 2021b) by simultaneously incorporating multiple cues but also differentially weighting these cues (i.e., cue-weighting, see Bröder & Undorf, 2019;Koriat, 1997;Undorf & Bröder, 2020;Undorf et al, 2018). Specifically, responsible remembering mechanisms may allow for the strategic encoding of important information to maximize memory utility and avoid forgetting valuable information, despite variation in encoding or perceptual processing fluency.…”

Can People Intentionally and Selectively Forget Prose Material?

“…While most of the earlier LMDF research used item material that was unrelated both within and between lists, there is evidence from a study by Kimball and Bjork (2002) using Deese–Roediger–McDermott (DRM) word lists as item material that both list 1 forgetting and list 2 enhancement can arise for words that are semantically related within lists (see also Murphy and Castel, 2021 , for a demonstration that item method directed forgetting can be significant but reduced for semantically related words compared to unassociated words). DRM lists, however, do not involve a hierarchical knowledge structure as is suggested for meaningful text.…”

Optimal Learning Under Time Constraints: Empirical and Simulated Trade‐offs Between Depth and Breadth of Study

“…6, if a student knew exactly the items being tested on an exam, an optimal strategy would be to engage in a high-depth (high-repetition) strategy aimed toward just those items. In elementary school spelling tests, for example, students are often told exactly which words will be tested in the next week (see analogously Murphy & Castel, 2021, where some items were assigned to the learner vs. their friend). In cases of academic cheating, where students are able to obtain an exam from a previous semester (see McKenzie, 2018), they can limit their uncertainty and focus on only memorizing the information they know will appear on the exam.…”