Strategy control and directed forgetting

Signals to subjects to forget presignal items (F-items) can completely eliminate the proactive interference postsignal items (R-items) would normally suffer from the F-items. To determine what happens to F-items, a strategy-control procedure was developed to test memory for F-items without destroying forget-signal credibility. The subjects saw short lists of paired associates, some containing a signal to forget presignal pairs. After each list, a single stimulus probe tested memory for the appropriate response. Tested pairs were always R-pairs unless a prearranged cue informed the subjects that the stimulus was from an F-pair. Although F-pairs did not interfere with recall of R-pairs, there was substantial recall of and interference among F-pairs. The results support a set differentiation mechanism of directed forgetting.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/33903/1/0000168.pd