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List-method directed forgetting usually involves asking people to study a list, followed by a cue to forget it, and then studying a second list. Prior work suggests that List 2 encoding is necessary for directed forgetting to occur, but recent studies have found that moving the forget cue from List 1 to List 2 allows people to selectively forget List 2. These results were attributed to an inhibitory mechanism. In four experiments, we aimed to replicate these findings and provide an alternative explanation based on the list-before-the-last paradigm. We propose that in the forget condition, participants may strategically retrieve List 1 in response to the forget cue, contributing to selective forgetting. Previous research suggests that explicit retrieval of earlier-leaned information causes a contextual shift, resulting in forgetting of target information. Verbal reports from Experiments 1 and 2 indicated that participants often covertly select a retrieval strategy to forget the most recent list. In Experiment 3, explicit instructions to retrieve resulted in significant forgetting. Directly manipulating forgetting strategy between participants in Experiment 4 suggested that retrieval may be one of several effective mechanisms to forget recently-encountered information. In the retrieval conditions, the data support our claim that in the absence of explicit postcue encoding, people can strategically retrieve earlier-learned information to forget. This novel forgetting mechanism is probably also used outside of the laboratory to "roll back" memory for incorrect information. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Clinical populations sometimes demonstrate difficulties forgetting stimuli related to their trauma-related disorder, perhaps because their intense personal connection to these stimuli produce deficits in the inhibitory control abilities necessary for forgetting. The present work examined this possibility for people who have high levels of traits implicated in borderline personality disorder (BPD). In two well-powered studies, we found no evidence for deficits in forgetting specific to BPD traits, even for people with clinically significant levels of the traits, contrary to previous studies. The present experiments updated the designs from earlier experiments to employ the most contemporary methods to examine directed forgetting recommended by recent reviews. With these improved methods, Study 1 found that participants showed significant directed forgetting for BPD-related words independent of their level of BPD traits, perhaps because the BPD-related words were so strongly associated with one another. Study 2 found that when we removed the strong relatedness between the stimuli, forgetting of BPD-relevant words was significant and did not interact with BPD symptomology. We concluded that in contrast to people with PTSD who show specific inhibitory deficits for trauma-related works, people with BPD show normal, intact inhibitory control even for words that they should find threatening.

Three experiments explored when testing produces immediate advantages over restudying in old/new recognition tests. According to the episodic context account, the study context is reinstate...

This paper reviews and critically assesses the implications of directed forgetting (DF) research on clinical populations. We begin by reviewing the typical methods and results of the item method and list method directed forgetting procedures and provide best practice recommendations for future studies using clinical populations. Next, we note that DF was often interpreted as being due to inhibition, and when clinical populations showed impaired directed forgetting, it was treated as evidence in inhibitory control difficulties. However, inhibition may not be the cause of DF effects, based on current understanding of these cognitive tasks. We instead suggest that item method DF is tied to attentional control, which might include inhibitory mechanisms (or might not). In contrast, list method DF is tied to two forms of memory control: control of mental context (indicated by effective forgetting of List 1), and changes in the strategies used to remember (indicated by better learning of List 2). We review the current state of the clinical DF literature, assess its strength based on our best practice recommendations, and call for more research when warranted.

The Memory-for-Change framework proposes that retrieving episodic memories can facilitate new learning when changes between existing memories and new information are integrated during encoding and later recollected. Four experiments examined whether reminders could improve memory updating and enhance new learning. Participants studied two study lists of word pairs and were given a cued recall test on responses from both lists. Reminders of List 1 words pairs (A-B) appeared immediately before List 2 words pairs that included repeated cues and changed responses (A-D). Across experiments, we varied the types of reminders to determine whether differences in their effectiveness as retrieval cues would influence memory for the list membership of responses. We found that presenting intact reminders (cue-response) enhanced the memory benefits associated with recollection-based retrieval of changes relative to when no reminders appeared and when partial reminders (cue-only) appeared with and without feedback. Importantly, cue-response reminders benefitted memory when they were recognised in List 2 and when changes were later recollected. This suggests that integrative encoding can be facilitated when substantial environmental support is available to cue retrieval of existing memories. These findings have practical implications for understanding which reminders best aid the correction of memories for inaccurate information.

In a recent article, Foroughi, Werner, Barragán, and Boehm-Davis (2015) demonstrated that interspersing interruptions between paragraphs during reading sometimes reduces accuracy on comprehension questions. We propose an account of their findings within long-term working memory (LTWM) theory. Our account proposes that interruptions interfere with the accessibility of the generated encodings of the text in long-term memory (LTM) and that unimpaired continued comprehension requires restoration of access to these memory encodings during the resumption of reading after the interruptions. It is consistent with the accuracy of question answering being substantially preserved in their study, which is seemingly inconsistent with their transient storage account. This theoretical controversy does not diminish the importance of Foroughi et al.'s results: We agree that additional research is needed to understand when and how interruptions impact various aspects of comprehension. (PsycINFO Database Record

A recent study (Dewhurst, Anderson, Cotter, Crust, & Clough, 2012) proposed that mental toughness – a personality construct from sports psychology that predicts many outcomes in sports and elsewhere – reflected ability at inhibitory control. Specifically, they found that mental toughness predicted directed forgetting, which measures peoples’ ability to forget things on purpose. We explored the relationships between the short form of the mental toughness scale (the MT-18), other personality traits (the Big Five and BIS/BAS), and directed forgetting. The correlation between mental toughness and directed forgetting replicated. Including a control group with no forget instruction ruled out sustained effort on memory tasks as an explanation; it was specific to directed forgetting. However, mental toughness was shown to correlate with many other personality characteristics, and its effects on directed forgetting were largely due to conscientiousness. We concluded that the basis of mental toughness was probably not inhibitory control as the original authors had proposed.

Spacing repetitions typically improves memory (the spacing effect). In three cued recall experiments, we explored the relationship between working memory capacity and the spacing effect. People with higher working memory capacity are more accurate on memory tasks that require retrieval relative to people with lower working memory capacity. The experiments used different retention intervals and lags between repetitions, but were otherwise similar. Working memory capacity and spacing of repetitions both improved memory in most of conditions, but they did not interact, suggesting additive effects. The results are consistent with the ACT-R model’s predictions, and with a study-phase recognition process underpinning the spacing effect in cued recall.