Active Forgetting - L5

Question 1

What are the mechanisms for forgetting?

Answer 1

ENCODING - Failure to Encode

Decay

STORAGE
- Interference (including trace destruction)
- Repression (or other active inhibition)

RETRIEVAL - Retrieval Failure

Question 2

What is Freudian Repression?

Answer 2

“An active mechanism to prevent remembering”

Based on Freud’s ideas: Memories injurious to the ego are suppressed to avoid anxiety

Question 3

What is an Experimental test by Wilkinson & Cargill (1955) that gives evidence for Freudian Repression?

Answer 3

Participants told they are doing a personality study.

Listen to story containing a dream description

Dream is either neutral, or contains fairly obvious sexual imagery with an oedipal content.

Question 4

What were the results of the Experimental test by Wilkinson & Cargill (1955)?

Answer 4

Result: Men have worse memory than women for the oedipal material.

Question 5

Criticisms of the Experimental test by Wilkinson & Cargill (1955)?

Answer 5

However… McCullough et al. (1976)

If subjects are not told that the experiment is about personality - no effect.

e.g. results are just a self-presentational bias

Question 6

What is the Experimental evidence from Levinger & Clark (1961) about Repression through arousal?

Answer 6

• Free association task with neutral (e.g. CARROT) or emotional stimulus words (e.g. ANGRY)
• Galvanic Skin Responses (GSRs - a.k.a. EDRs or SCRs) recorded to assess physiological arousal
• Free associates to neutral words recalled better than those to emotional words

Question 7

Critisisms of the Experimental evidence from Levinger & Clark (1961)?

Answer 7

This is a test of memory for associates – not memory for the stimuli themselves. Memory for stimulus words generally is better if they are arousing (e.g. Rubin, 1986).

This is also an immediate memory test – if Freudian repression existed to emotional events it should show at long delays…

Question 8

Is there Enhancement of LTM with Arousal?

Answer 8

At immediate testing memory for associates to emotional words is poorer, but after 7 days, memory for associates to emotional words is better than for neutral ones.

Question 9

Who tested the Enhancement of LTM with Arousal?

Answer 9

Replicate Levinger & Clark with delay added - Parkin, Lewinsohn & Folkard (1982)

Question 10

What is the The Action-Decrement theory (Walker, 1958)?

Answer 10

Memory traces take time to consolidate – physiological arousal increases the time for the trace to consolidate, but may improve longer-term encoding.

Question 11

What is Retrograde Arousal Enhancement?

Answer 11

Neutral Picture, Inter Stimulus Interval of 4 or 9 seconds, Arousing Picture

Recognition Memory Tests for both Neutral and Arousing after 1 week

Experiment by Anderson, Wais & Gabrieli (2006) - research more x

Question 12

What are the results of Experiment by Anderson, Wais & Gabrieli (2006)?

Answer 12

Memory for Arousing Stimuli is Enhanced – as predicted e.g.Rubin, 1986

Memory for Neutral Stimuli shortly before Arousing ones is Enhanced

Enhancement is for Remembering rather that Knowing

Interpretation in terms of Perseveration-Consolidation (McGaugh, 2006)

Question 13

How was Reconsolidation from Arousal researched by an Experiment by Finn & Roediger (2011)?

Answer 13

Vocabulary learning is enhanced by negative arousing pictures immediately after (E1) or 2 secs after (E2) successful retrieval.

But arousal does not enhance performance while restudying items (E3)

Question 14

How are arousal and memory linked?

Answer 14

Arousal may have effects on memory
e.g. “weapon focus” – selective attention towards threat central/peripheral tradeoffs (e.g. Christianson & Loftus 1987)

Emotional influences on memory are actually quite broad ranging (e.g. McGaugh, 2006), but laboratory studies almost never show a simple impairment in memory for emotional material.

Arousal generally enhances memory for items and associates at long retention intervals -** no experimental support for general repression.**

Question 15

What is Part-List cueing?

Answer 15

Slamecka (1968):
A simple demonstration of associative cueing goes wrong!

Encode 3 word lists.
30 rare words.
30 common words.
30 butterfly associates.

Recall with context -
(15 words provided)
Or in control condition
(no words provided)

Part-list impairs memory.

Question 16

What is the interpretation of Part list cueing in terms of?

Answer 16

Current interpretation is in terms of both Strategy Disruption and active Inhibition (e.g. Bäuml & Aslan, 2006, 2011)

Question 17

How did Anderson, Bjork & Bjork (1994) research Retrieval Induced Forgetting?

Answer 17

Encode Category-Exemplar pairs.
Practice Retrieval of Half the pairs.

At final test cued recall is:
At baseline for unpracticed categories.
Enhanced for practiced exemplars of practiced categories.
But impaired for unpracticed exemplars of practiced categories.

Question 18

What is directed forgetting? research more

Answer 18

List-Method Directed Forgetting:

Control Group Experimental Group

Learn one list of words (List 1C). Learn one list of words (List 1E).

	 ------ 				Surprise instructions to Forget

Learn second list (List 2C) Learn second list (List 2E)

Recall All List 1C and 2C Recall All List 1E and 2E

Recall for 2E > 1E, but also, 1E < 1C, and 2E > 2C

Question 19

What is an example of “item method directed forgetting”?

Answer 19

Peach - REMEMBER, Apple - FORGET, Cake - FORGET, Horse - FORGET, Blue - REMEMBER, Carrot - REMEMBER

REMEMBER items enhanced relative to FORGET items.

Question 20

How useful is item method directed forgetting?

Answer 20

This yields substantial REMEMBER - FORGET differences that can be observed in both Recall and Recognition

Generally interpreted in terms of selective rehearsal of TBR items - i.e. an encoding effect rather than inhibition of items in storage.

Question 20

How useful is list method directed for forgetting?

Answer 20

This generally yields large recall deficits for TBF lists relative to TBR or control lists (often not observed in recognition tests).

Generally interpeted in terms of Retrieval Inhibition.

Items remain in memory (see intact recognition) but are actively inhibited from being recalled.

But note appropriate control lists and issues of output order control (Anderson, 2005).

Question 21

What is Direct Suppression-Think/No-Think according to Anderson & Green (2001)?

Answer 21

Learn 40 word pairs (e.g. ORDEAL - ROACH)

Then 0 to 16 practice trials.
Either THINK - When you see ORDEAL, say ROACH
Or NO-THINK - Fixate the cue word (ORDEAL) for 4 seconds but attempt to prevent ROACH from coming to mind.

Question 22

What were the results of Anderson & Green (2001)s experiment?

Answer 22

Cued Recall Test:
ORDEAL - ?

Performance improves with repetitions of THINK trials.

But declines with repetitions of NO-THINK trials.

Question 23

What are the three possible causes of supression mechaisms?

Answer 23

Three Possible Causes:

(1) Generation of Alternative Associations
(2) Inhibition of Cue- Target Connection
(3) Direct Inhibition of Target.

Question 24

What are some practical implications of inhibition?

Answer 24

Success in inhibition appears to be correlated with active engagement of prefrontal cortex in suppressing hippocampal activation (Anderson & Levy, 2009). Individual differences in ability may explain variations in recovery from trauma.

Subsequent studies have shown that inhibition paradigms can be extended to memories for real events - e.g. actions (Sahakyan & Foster, 2009), autobiographical memories (Barnier et al., 2007). 

Active suppression through NO-THINK or Directed Forgetting could potentially explain loss of memories from Childhood Sexual Abuse (e.g. Gordon & Connolly, 2010).

In everyday situations inhibition may be important for successful retrieval, and other domains such as creative problems solving (e.g. Storm, 2011).

Question 25

Has freud reclaimed Active Forgetting?

Answer 25

No evidence for traditional Freudian repression in the sense of automatic suppression of emotional material – No Automatic Repression.

- Emotional items generally well remembered

- Even neutral items associated with arousal are generally well remembered

But there is evidence that information held in storage can be actively inhibited.

- Part List Cuing, Retrieval Induced Forgetting, Directed Forgetting paradigms all associated with inhibition of the memory trace

Thinking about stuff repeatedly will almost certainly make it more likely to be remembered, and actively not thinking about stuff may actually inhibit retrieval from storage – Practical Active Repression.