University of Calgary, Canada.
Memory. 2010 Oct;18(7):763-73. doi: 10.1080/09658211.2010.510475.
Costs and benefits of directed forgetting are observed when a between-list instruction to forget List 1 impairs List 1 recall while enhancing List 2 recall. These effects are often ascribed to intentional inhibition of List 1. Contrary to this inhibition account, we found that a forget instruction did not produce costs unless an explicit instruction to concentrate on List 2 was used (Experiment 1). Alternatively, costs may be ascribed to a shift in mental context between encoding and retrieval. Consistent with this mental context-change account, an unexpected task (wiping the computer screen and one's hands) produced costs comparable to a forget instruction, as did as a brief chat between lists (Experiment 2). A number-search task between lists produced neither costs nor benefits (Experiment 3), suggesting that mere distraction is insufficient for inducing mental context change. Our findings support the claim that mental context change underlies both intentional and unintentional forgetting.
当在列表间的指导遗忘指令会损害列表 1 的回忆，同时增强列表 2 的回忆时，就会观察到定向遗忘的成本和收益。这些影响通常归因于对列表 1 的有意抑制。与这种抑制解释相反，我们发现，只有在使用集中注意列表 2 的明确指令时，遗忘指令才会产生成本（实验 1）。或者，成本可能归因于编码和检索之间的心理语境的转变。与这种心理语境变化的解释一致，在列表之间进行意外任务（擦拭计算机屏幕和双手）会产生与遗忘指令相当的成本，就像列表之间的短暂聊天一样（实验 2）。在列表之间进行数字搜索任务既不会产生成本也不会产生收益（实验 3），这表明仅仅分散注意力不足以引起心理语境的变化。我们的发现支持这样一种说法，即心理语境的变化是有意和无意遗忘的基础。
