Failing to forget? Evidence for both impaired and preserved working memory control in older adults

Voluntary forgetting is accomplished via top-down control over memory contents. Age-related declines in cognitive control may compromise voluntary forgetting. Using a working-memory variant of a directed forgetting task, we examined age differences in forgetting efficacy by analyzing direct measures of memory accuracy and two indirect measures of retention: proactive interference and semantic distortions. The directed forgetting effect in long-term memory was virtually absent in older adults. Further, compared to young adults, older adults recognized fewer to-be-remembered and more to-be-forgotten items in working memory. However, indirect measures of forgetting efficacy suggest some spared ability to control working memory contents in older adults: Both young and older adult participants exhibited reduced proactive interference for to-be-forgotten words (Experiment 1) and reduced semantic errors to to-be-forgotten list associates (Experiment 2) in working memory. Indirect memory measures of forgetting efficacy can provide a fuller understanding of spared and impaired control processes in older adults.