The longer we have to forget the more we remember: The ironic effect of postcue duration in item-based directed forgetting.

Abstract

The effects of the duration of remember and forget cues were examined to test the differential rehearsal account of item-based directed forgetting. In Experiments 1 and 2, cues were shown for 300, 600, or 900 ms, and a directed forgetting effect (better recognition of remember than forget items) was found at each duration. In addition, recognition of both remember and forget items increased with cue duration. These 2 effects did not interact. The results of Experiment 2 further showed that memory for the cue associated with the study items increased with cue duration as well. The results of Experiment 1 were replicated in Experiment 3 for cue durations of 1, 2, and 3 s. Finally, a similar pattern of results was found for cue durations of 2, 4, and 6 s for associative recognition of random word pairs. If subjects cannot immediately terminate the processing of forget items, the lingering processing of these items is as beneficial as the continued processing of remember items. Alternatively, subjects may use inefficient or counterproductive strategies that ironically improve memory for the information they wish to forget.

Context reinstatement in recognition: Memory and beyond

“…This once again indicates that participants encode item-context associations at study, even when they are not explicitly directed to do so, and that these associations can be retrieved at test when cued with reinstated contexts. The fact that item-context associations are automatically established at study is perhaps not surprising given the earlier literature speaking to this issue (e.g., Bancroft, Hockley, & Farquhar, 2013;Jou, 2010), although it should be pointed out that recently Reder et al (2013) For Experiment 3, we repeated the analyses of whether the side on which the target face was presented at the test affected forced-report recognition accuracy. Interestingly, in this experiment a factor of side reliably interacted with the context condition, F(2, 70) = 5.15, p = .01.…”

Intentional and incidental encoding of item and associative information in the directed forgetting procedure

“…It is interesting to note that whereas presentation time before the cue, at least over the first few seconds, was not observed to influence the encoding of associative information, Bancroft et al (2013) found that the duration after the cue (2-6 s) led to increased associative recognition. It appears that the duration before and after the cue may have different consequences for associative memory.…”

“…Previously, Hockley and Cristi (1996) and Jou (2010) have shown that participants do encode associative information even when they are instructed to emphasize the encoding of item information, although not to the same extent as when they focus on making associations between unrelated word pairs. Bancroft et al (2013) further demonstrated the incidental encoding of associative information for F-cued pairs with the item-based directed forgetting procedure. Bancroft et al presented random word pairs for 3 s before the cue was given.…”

“…Finally, Bancroft, Hockley and Farquhar (2013), examined item-based directed forgetting for associative information. In this procedure, study items are followed by a cue that indicates whether participants should try to remember or forget each item, or in this experiment, pair of items.…”

“…In the directed-forgetting experiment for associative information reported by Bancroft et al (2013), the pairs of items were presented for 3 s before the ensuing R or F cue was presented. Ideally, participants should simply have held the two words in mind for 3 s and not deliberately generate any associations between them until an R cue is presented.…”