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Updated: Jun 26, 2026

A Cognitive Paradigm to Investigate Interference in Working Memory by Distractions and Interruptions
Published on: July 16, 2015
Inhibitory control of memory in normal ageing: dissociation between impaired intentional and preserved unintentional
Fabienne Collette1, Sophie Germain, Michaël Hogge
1Neuropsychology Unit, University of Liège, Belgium. f.collette@ulg.ac.be
Abstract:
The aim of this study was to compare the performance of elderly and young participants on a series of memory tasks involving either intentional or unintentional inhibitory control of memory content. Intentional inhibition processes in working and episodic memory were explored with directed forgetting tasks and in semantic memory with the Hayling task. Unintentional inhibitory processes in working memory, long-term memory, and semantic memory were explored with an interference resolution task, the retrieval practice paradigm, and the flanker task, respectively. The results indicate that elderly participants' performance on the two directed forgetting tasks and the Hayling task is lower than that of young ones, and that this impairment is not related to their initial memory capacity. This suggests that there is a specific dysfunction affecting intentional inhibitory control of memory contents in normal ageing.
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