Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1007 West Harrison Street (MC 285), Chicago, IL 60607-7137, USA.
J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 2011 Sep;37(5):1287-93. doi: 10.1037/a0023921.
Research on retrieval-induced forgetting has shown that retrieval can cause the forgetting of related or competing items in memory (Anderson, Bjork, & Bjork, 1994). In the present research, we examined whether an analogous phenomenon occurs in the context of creative problem solving. Using the Remote Associates Test (RAT; Mednick, 1962), we found that attempting to generate a novel common associate to 3 cue words caused the forgetting of other strong associates related to those cue words. This problem-solving-induced forgetting effect occurred even when participants failed to generate a viable solution, increased in magnitude when participants spent additional time problem solving, and was positively correlated with problem-solving success on a separate set of RAT problems. These results implicate a role for forgetting in overcoming fixation in creative problem solving.
检索诱发遗忘的研究表明，检索可以导致记忆中相关或竞争项目的遗忘（Anderson、Bjork 和 Bjork，1994）。在本研究中，我们考察了类似的现象是否会出现在创造性问题解决的情境中。我们使用远程联想测验（RAT；Mednick，1962）发现，尝试生成 3 个提示词的新颖共同联想会导致与这些提示词相关的其他强联想的遗忘。即使参与者未能生成可行的解决方案，这种解决问题引起的遗忘效应也会发生；当参与者花费更多的时间解决问题时，这种遗忘效应的幅度会增加；并且与在另一组 RAT 问题上解决问题的成功呈正相关。这些结果表明，遗忘在克服创造性问题解决中的固定思维方面起着作用。
