Active forgetting: inhibition Flashcards
What is hypermnesia?
Memory improving over time, rather than following the standard forgetting function.
Does memory always get worse over time?
Not according to older research - Boreas (1930) found an initial increase in memory for poems after 12 hours.
What did Erdelyi and Becker (1974) find?
That using repeated recall tests, net gains in memory can be observed over time.
• especially with visual stimuli
• in some cases additional thinking can help.
• in most cases hypermnesia requires consistent increases in “retrieval effort”.
How did Erdelyi and Becker explain their findings?
Normal memory is the result of two processes - reminiscence and forgetting. Where forgetting is low and reminiscence (e.g. pts given more time to put in extra retrieval effort) is high, a net gain in memory over time (hypermnesia) can be observed.
What did Scriver and Safer (1988) study?
The practical applications of hypermnesia and inhibition in memory, through watching a burglary tape (recall, questionnaire, recall, questionnaire, recall).
What did Scriver and Safer (1988) find?
Recall does seem to improve over time, though this may be partly due to limited recall time and 47 box detail procedure.
What have more recent studies found regarding hypermnesia effects?
- replicated for emotional items - may be stronger in negatively arousing conditions (Kern, Libkumen and Otani, 2002)
- demonstrated in recognition - therefore not all retrieval effort (Groninger and Murray, 2004)
- stressing of the role of inhibition as a general process in memory storage and retrieval (e.g. Anderson 2003, 2005)
What did Slamecka (1968) do?
A simple demonstration of associative cueing going wrong - if given half of the cues for a word list (e.g. 15 of the 30 rare words), the data are counter-intuitive - it makes it MORE difficult to recall the other items in the list.
How are Slamecka (1968)’s findings interpreted?
Strategy disruption and active inhibition.
What did Anderson, Bjork and Bjork (1994) find regarding retrieval induced forgetting?
• had pts encode category-exemplar pairs, practicing the retrieval of half of the pairs.
• at final test, cued recall is:
- average for unpracticed categories.
- enhanced for practiced exemplars of practice categories
- impaired for unpracticed exemplars of practiced categories.
I.e. Practicing fruit-orange inhibits fruit-banana.
What did Bjork (1970), Johnson (1994) and Anderson (2005) find about directed forgetting?
(Asking pts to learn a list, then telling them to forget it and learn another list)
• recall for the second list is better than the first list.
• recall of the first list is worse than the control condition, who learnt both lists but weren’t told to forget anything.
• forgetting condition pts learned the second list better than the control - inhibiting previous list, making encoding better for the second?
What is the difference between list-method and item-method directed forgetting?
List method involves memorisation of two full lists and then being told to forget one, whereas item method involves learning a list and then being told to remember half of them.
What are the findings of item-method directed forgetting?
Remember items are enhanced relative to forget ones in both recall and recognition.
How are the findings of item-method directed forgetting generally interpreted?
Selective rehearsal of to be remembered items - an encoding effect rather than inhibition of items in storage.
What results are generally found in list-method directed forgetting?
Large recall (not recognition) deficits for to be forgotten lists relative to to be remembered or control lists.
How are the findings from list-method directed forgetting generally interpreted?
Retrieval inhibition - items remain in memory (hence recognition) but are actively inhibited from being recalled.
What are problems with list-method directed forgetting?
Anderson (2005) - appropriate control lists and issues of output order control.
What is the difference between part-list cueing, retrieval-induced forgetting, and directed forgetting?
Part-list cueing involves a list to be encoded, then a test with part of the list provided.
Retrieval-induced forgetting involves a practice retrieval where part of the list is provided.
Directed forgetting can be list- or item-directed, and involves being told to forget certain items/lists.
What did Anderson and Green (2001) do?
- asked pts to learn 40 word pairs and then to either think or not think about the associate on practice trials.
- found that on a cued recall test, performance improves with think trials and declines with no-think ones.
What three suppression mechanisms attempt to explain Anderson and Green’s think/no-think paradigm?
- Generation of alternative associations (in no think condition, try to think about other things)
- Inhibition of cue-target connection
- Direct inhibition of target
Which suppression mechanism is correct?
When given an independent cue, the target still shows inhibition, supporting the idea of direct inhibition.
What are the practical implications of inhibition?
- success in inhibition (Anderson and Levy, 2009)
- paradigms are applicable to memories for real events.
- Active suppression through NO-THINK or Directed Forgetting could potentially explain loss of memories from childhood sexual abuse (Gordon and Connolly, 2010).
- Everyday situations - successful retrieval and creative problem solving (Storm, 2011)
What did Anderson and Levy (2009) find?
That success in inhibition appears to be correlated with active engagement of the prefrontal cortex in suppressing hippocampal activity.
What evidence is there that inhibition paradigms can be extended to memories for real events?
Sahakyan and Foster (2009) found they can be extended to memories for actions.
Barnier et al (2007) found the same for autobiographical memories.
