Retrieval from episodic memory: beneficial and detrimental effects of selective memory retrieval

Selective retrieval can be detrimental for related memories if access to the original study context is (largely) maintained or beneficial if access to the original encoding context is impaired. Prior work has shown that the detrimental effect is typically recall specific and not disrupted by the presence of a delay between prior nontarget retrieval and subsequent target retrieval, whereas neither the influence of a delay nor recall specificity of the beneficial effect have been examined to date. The two-factor account of selective memory retrieval, which attributes the detrimental effect to inhibition/blocking and the beneficial effect to reactivation of the original study context, suggests that the delay between prior nontarget retrieval and subsequent target recall as well as recall specificity might affect the two opposing effects differently. Experiment 1 demonstrated detrimental effects regardless of delay but beneficial effects only if target recall was undelayed. Experiments 2A and 2B showed that the detrimental effect is recall specific, while the beneficial effect generalizes to restudy trials. Pointing to different underlying mechanisms, the demonstration that delay between nontarget and target recall and recall specificity affect the detrimental and the beneficial effect differently, supports the two-factor account of selective memory retrieval. Experiments 3A and 3B focused on the robustness of recall specificity of the detrimental effect and showed that selective restudy - like selective retrieval - can induce forgetting of related memories when practice is mixed, i. e., when retrieval and restudy trials are randomly interleaved. Thus, the present thesis provides first evidence for dynamic effects between retrieval and restudy trials when practice is mixed