Cognitive control of familiarity: directed forgetting reduces proactive interference in working memory.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Memory Research

Background:

• Proactive interference (PI) hinders new learning when prior information interferes.
• Working memory tasks show PI through increased errors and response times to recent probes.
• Existing methods to reduce PI offer limited cognitive control.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if intentional forgetting can reduce proactive interference in working memory.
• To determine the efficacy of directed forgetting as a cognitive control strategy for PI.

Main Methods:

• Participants engaged in a working memory task incorporating directed-forgetting instructions.
• Recent probes were occasionally presented during the working memory task.
• Surprise long-term memory tests assessed recall for to-be-remembered and to-be-forgotten items.

Main Results:

• The directed-forgetting effect was confirmed, with better memory for to-be-remembered items.
• Proactive interference was virtually eliminated for probes from to-be-forgotten lists.
• PI was significantly reduced compared to probes from to-be-remembered lists.

Conclusions:

• Cognitive control via directed forgetting effectively reduces proactive interference.
• Attenuated memory representations of to-be-forgotten items likely underlie PI reduction.
• Directed forgetting offers a potent strategy to overcome interference in working memory.