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A contextual change account of the directed forgetting effect
Lili Sahakyan1, Colleen M Kelley
1Department of Psychology, Florida State University, USA. sahakyan@ufl.edu
Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory, and Cognition
|November 27, 2002
Summary
Directed forgetting effects, including memory costs and benefits, stem from internal context changes. Manipulating cognitive context directly, even without a forget instruction, produced similar results, supporting this theory.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Memory Research
Background:
- Directed forgetting, a phenomenon where participants forget intentionally instructed items, is typically explained by context change.
- The 'list method' of directed forgetting involves presenting items in two lists, with a 'forget' instruction preceding the second list.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether cognitive context change, independent of a 'forget' instruction, can elicit directed forgetting effects.
- To examine the role of context reinstatement in modulating memory costs and benefits associated with context change.
Main Methods:
- Experiment 1: Directly manipulated cognitive context between list presentations without a 'forget' instruction.
- Experiment 2: Replicated findings with a different context manipulation and tested context reinstatement during recall.
Main Results:
- Costs and benefits similar to directed forgetting were observed by directly manipulating cognitive context.
- Context reinstatement reduced these memorial costs and benefits in both manipulated context and standard directed forgetting conditions.
Conclusions:
- The findings support a context change account of directed forgetting.
- Memory performance is significantly influenced by the degree of context change and reinstatement between learning and retrieval.