Forgetting II

Question 1

why are we motivated to forget?

Answer 1

• environmental cues bring to mind traumatic memories
• forgetting is beneficial
• retain a positive outlook towards life: positivity bias

Question 2

positivity bias

Answer 2

• tendency to recall more pleasant memories than either neutral or unplesant ones
• increases over the lifespan

Question 3

positivity bias study: Charles, Mather, and Carstensen (2003)

Answer 3

Charles, Mather, and Carstensen (2003)

task:
- younger and older adults viewed pictured of pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant scenes
- recall the pictures - after 15-minutes delay

result:
- older adults recalled about twice as many positive than negative images
- recognition, however, was equal for both positive and negative images

Question 4

why does positivity bias increase with age?

Answer 4

1. as wer get older our focus:
   - shifts away from future goals
   - maintain a sense of well-being
2. older people are more skilled in emotion regulation:
   - goal-driven moniitoring
   - evaluating, altering and gating (letting in or out) emotinoal reactions and memories
   - better control of what we remember

motives alter what we remember and we get better at it with age

Question 5

motivated forgetting terminology

Answer 5

Repression: (Freud)
- psycological defense mechanism aimed at rejecting
- keeping out of consciousness
- repressed material still influences behaviour
- unconscious

supression:
- conscious process
- intentional, goal directed
- “intentional forgetting”

Question 6

Psychogenic amnesia

Answer 6

• profound forgetting
• psychological in origin
• often triggered by trauma
• lacks observable neurobiological basis
• memory for public events and general knowledge often remain intact
• ability to form new memories intact

possible mechanism:
extreme psychological distress -> involuntary suppression retrieval in relation to certain stimuli

Question 7

limit encoding

Answer 7

way to control what we remember
- look away from stimulus
- focus on pleasant aspects
- stop elaborative thoughts

Question 8

prevent retrieval

Answer 8

way to control what we remember
- intentionally shift to new thought
- avoid cues/reminders

Question 9

stop retrieval

Answer 9

way to control what we remember

in the face of a reminder
- actively suppress the unwanted memory

Question 10

Directed Forgetting: Item Method

Answer 10

Basden and Basden (1996)
Directed forgetting is observed on:
- recall tests
- recognition tests

effect reflects differences in episodic encoding (instuction before encoding)
- remember instructions: elaborative
- forget instructions: release attention

suggested “forget” instruction engages an active process that disrupts encoding

Question 11

encoding suppression

Answer 11

active process adopted at encoding and restrict which experiences we allow into memory
- RT evidence + fMRI evidence

Question 12

why do we need encoding suppression?

Answer 12

• regulates which experiences will be allowed into memory
• life has difficulties -> reducing the footprint of negative experiences is always good
• bias in remembering more positive than negative characteristics about oneself, but matched when relating to another (Sedikides & Green, 2000)
• regulate memory to protect self image

Question 13

Directed Forgetting: List-Method

Answer 13

learn new list - interference with old
Geiselman, Bjork & Fishman, 1983

instruction to forget: (after encoding)
costs - forget instructions impair recall of items from first list
benefit: reduce proactive interference expected on the second list

differences in retrieval, not encoding
- disappear in recognition tests
- appear in implicit tests

Question 14

naturalistic diary study

Answer 14

task:
- students recorded 2 events/day in a diary for 1 week
- 1 group asked to forget previous weeks entries and focus on new events in second week
- 1 group asked to remember events from 1st week and new events in second
- recall events from both weeks

results:
the forget group had relatively poorer memory for
- first week events
- example items that neither group thought they would have to recall
- both negative and positive mood events

Question 15

Retrieval inhibition hypothesis - mechanism of list method directed forgetting

Answer 15

forget instructions inhibit list 1 items
- reduces the activation of unwanted memories
- however they remain available

representing forgotten items restores their activation levels
- explains why items can be recognized but not recalled

Question 16

context shift hypothesis - mechanism of list method directed forgetting

Answer 16

forget instructions mentally separate list 1 and list 2 items
- the mental context shifts between the lists
- list 2 context lingers into final test
- new context is a poor retrieval cue for list 1 items

may involve inhibition of the unwanted content

Question 17

context shift hypothesis study: Sahakyan and Kelley, 2002

Answer 17

context shifts led to worse recall of a former list (even without forget instruction)

• part of the directed-forgetting effect arises from as shift in mental context

Question 18

Inhibitory control: Behaviour/action control

Answer 18

the ability to initiate, discontinue, or prevent motor actions based on goals

Go/No-Go Task:
measures inhibitory control over action
- press a button whenever a letter appears on the screen
- if the letter is an “X” (rare) withhold the response

Question 19

inhibitory control: cognitive control

Answer 19

the ability to flexibly control thoughts in accordance with our goals - includes ability to stop unwanted thoughts from entering mind

Think/No-think task:
- measures inhibitory control over memory
- can people use inhibitory control to prevent unwanted memory?

Question 20

think/no think paradigm

Answer 20

total control effect:
- think>no think
- intentional control yields lasting retrieval consequences

positive control effect:
- think > baseline
- reminders without intention to suppress facilitate memories

negative control effect:
- no think > baseline
- reminders with intention to suppress inhibit memories

Question 21

memory suppression (think no think)

Answer 21

• suppression increases with more suppression trials per event
• replication with various stimulus combos
• suppression occurs with neutral and unwanted memories, but unclear if emotional memories are more/less suppressible
• after a single suppression forgetting lasts at least 24 hours
• people with diminished cognitive control show less suppression induced forgetting

Question 22

inhibitory control and PTSD - Catarino et al., 2019

Answer 22

is inhibitory control impaired in PTSD

hyp - PTSD patients will be less able to suppress

results:
- suppression was diminished in the PTSD group conpared with the control group
- retrieval suppression was most compromised in people with the most severe symptoms

Question 23

spontaneous recovery (memory)

Answer 23

the re-emergence of a previously extinguished conditioned response after a delay in classical conditioning (Pavlov)
- increases with time, though rarely returns to full strength
- suffers diminishing returns with increasing recovery/extinction cycles
- occurs in conditioned emotional responding
- the stronger the initial memory, the more likely to recover

Question 24

why do memories recover spontaneously?

Answer 24

if retroactive interference reflects inhibition of responses that had previously been relevant:
- forgotten memories recover when inhibition is gradually released

• MacLeod and Macrae found that inhibition appears to decrease over time
• retrieval induced forgetting is significantly reduced after a 24 hour delay

Question 25

repeated retrieval attempts study - Ballard, 1913

Answer 25

task:
- children memorised poems
result:
- successive recall attempts led to recalling previously forgotten ones
conc:
- people often display reminiscence - remembering again the forgotten without relearning
- could be gradual after multiple attempts

Question 26

hypermnesia

Answer 26

• improvement in recall arising from repeated testing sessions on the same material
• increases with more recall tests
• largest effects on free recall, but also appears for cued recall and recognition

can be considered a condition

Erdelyi and Kleinbard -
arises from visualisation and reconstruction

Question 27

Hypermnesia study - Erdelyi & Kleinbard, 1978

Answer 27

task:
- studied 40 pictures or words
- repeatedly tried recalling items over a week
results:
- recall improved over testing days
- reversed forgetting curve
- larger effects for pictures that less imageable words
conc:
- hypermnesia arises through visualisation and reconstruction

Question 28

Cue Reinstatement

Answer 28

biasing attention away from certain aspects of experiences can lead to forgetting of the unattended elements
- but encountering the right cue can lead to memory recovery

Question 29

cue reinstatement study - smith and moynan, 2008

Answer 29

results:
- without cues memory for non-reviewed categories was impaired
- providing the category cues eliminated the forgetting effect
- true for negative as well as neutral memories

conclusion:
- selectively avoiding reminiscing about memories can cause forgetting
- but can be overcome given the right reminders

Question 30

avenues of memory recovery

Answer 30

suggestive therapy
- may reflect therapists suggestions
- lack corroborative evidence

spontaneous recovery
- more likely to be genuine
- more likely to be corroborated