The Effect of Item Strength on Retrieval-Induced Forgetting in Social Interaction

Retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) refers to the phenomenon in which people retrieve information, but forget related information. RIF also occurs when people interact with each other. In social interactions, information recalled by the speaker can lead the listener to forget related information, a phenomenon known as socially shared retrieval-induced forgetting (SS-RIF). How does SS-RIF occur? Does it have similar mechanisms to RIF? By observing SS-RIF and RIF with different item strengths, this study investigated the mechanisms of SS-RIF. Item strength was manipulated based on exemplar taxonomic frequency, with high-frequency exemplars designated as strong items and low-frequency exemplars as weak. Experiment 1 found that only strong items exhibited SS-RIF and RIF, while weak items did not exhibit either SS-RIF or RIF. In Experiment 2, participants were asked to restudy the materials, and only the strong items still exhibited SS-RIF and RIF. Additionally, the magnitude of SS-RIF observed in Experiment 2 was similar to that observed in Experiment 1, as well as the performance on RIF. The findings of this study provide evidence for the inhibition mechanism of both SS-RIF and RIF, indicating a shared underlying mechanism.