Context-dependent impairment of recollection in list-method directed forgetting
In list-method directed forgetting, people's ability to forget one of the sets of learned material is examined. Research shows that memory for to-be-forgotten items is impaired when assessed by a recall test and by recognition tests reliant on recollective processes. Retrieval inhibition
and context-change mechanisms have been proposed to account for the directed forgetting effects and both of them account for the results obtained with recognition tests. However, the context change account makes a specific prediction that recollection is impaired by directed forgetting only
if it makes use of contextual associations. In the present study, directed forgetting was examined with two types of recollection-based tasks making use of different types of associations, namely a list discrimination task utilising contextual associations and an associative recognition task
utilising interitem associations. Consistent with the context change account, the costs of directed forgetting were observed in a list discrimination task and were not observed in an associative recognition task. The results indicate that impairment in recollection due to directed forgetting
is not general and provide converging evidence to support the context-change account.
Keywords: Context change; Directed forgetting; Recollection
Document Type: Research Article
Affiliations: 1: Department of Psychology, University of Hull, Hull, UK 2: Department of Psychology, Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland 3: Department of Psychology, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK
Publication date: 01 October 2012
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