Let me give you something to think about: Does needing to remember something new make it easier to forget something old?

Conscious Cogn. 2023 Oct 15;115:103581. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2023.103581. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTIn an item-method directed forgetting task, memory instructions presumably operate by promoting further rehearsal of to-be-remembered (TBR) items and limiting encoding of to-be-forgotten (TBF) items. We asked whether diverting attentional resources away from TBF items and towards a new item that needed to be committed to memory would improve forgetting. To this end, study words in our experiments were presented singly followed by a remember instruction (single-TBR), by a forget instruction (single-TBF), or else were replaced by a new word to be remembered (replace-TBR) in place of the original study word which could be forgotten (replace-TBF). A typical directed forgetting effect was observed across single and replace trials. However, there was no compelling evidence that forgetting was better for replace-TBF compared to single-TBF words, suggesting that, by itself, the explicit redirection of attentional and other processing resources away from forget items may not be sufficient to improve item-method directed forgetting.PMID:37847944 | DOI:10.1016/j.concog.2023.103581

Source: Consciousness and Cognition - October 17, 2023 Category: Neurology Authors: Anjali Pandey Nichole Michaud Jason Ivanoff Tracy Taylor Source Type: research