Forgetting Is a Feature, Not a Bug: Intentionally Forgetting Some Things Helps Us Remember Others by Freeing Up Working Memory Resources

Psychological Science
Vencislav PopovLynne M Reder

Abstract

In the present study, we used an item-method directed-forgetting paradigm to test whether instructions to forget or remember one item affect memory for subsequently studied items. In two experiments (Ns = 138 and 33, respectively), recall was higher when a word pair was preceded during study by a to-be-forgotten word pair. This effect was cumulative: Performance increased when more preceding study items were to be forgotten. The effect decreased when memory was conditioned on instructions for items appearing farther back in the study list. Experiment 2 used a dual-task paradigm that suppressed, during encoding, verbal rehearsal or attentional refreshing. Neither task removed the effect, ruling out that rehearsal or attentional borrowing is responsible for the advantage conferred from previous to-be-forgotten items. We propose that memory formation depletes a limited resource that recovers over time and that to-be-forgotten items consume fewer resources, leaving more resources available for storing subsequent items. A computational model implementing the theory provided excellent fits to the data.

References

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Citations

Mar 29, 2020·Psychonomic Bulletin & Review·Pelin TanDaryl E Wilson
Nov 4, 2020·Neuropsychology, Development, and Cognition. Section B, Aging, Neuropsychology and Cognition·Tiffany K JantzPatricia A Reuter-Lorenz
Apr 2, 2021·Scientific Reports·Stas KozakNitzan Censor
Apr 2, 2021·Neurobiology of Learning and Memory·Ralph R Miller

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Software Mentioned

R Core
OpenPracticesDisclosure
R programming environment
brms

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