Center on Autobiographical Memory Research, Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
Mem Cognit. 2019 Jul;47(5):893-905. doi: 10.3758/s13421-019-00904-w.
Forgetting, understood as a measurable reduction in memory accessibility over time, has been studied extensively in episodic memory for more than 130 years. However, this research has typically focused on voluntary memory-that is, information retrieved intentionally. Few studies have examined forgetting in relation to involuntary memories-that is, memories coming to mind spontaneously with no preceding attempt at retrieval. The purpose of the present studies was to investigate the effects of cue distinctiveness and the passage of time on the accessibility of involuntary and voluntary memories for pictures of scenes. For both types of retrieval, we examined the frequency of correct memories after a few minutes, one day, and seven days; in Study 2, we also examined frequency after three days. Across both studies and both types of retrieval, distinct cues yielded better memory access than nondistinct cues, and memory frequency dropped systematically with increased retention time. At the shortest retention interval, voluntary retrieval led to greater memory access than involuntary retrieval, but after one week, this advantage had disappeared. The findings suggest that memories for events become more cue-dependent over time, which limits the beneficial effects of strategic search associated with voluntary retrieval at longer delays.
遗忘，即随着时间的推移记忆可及性的降低，已经在情景记忆的历时 130 多年的研究中得到了广泛的研究。然而，这项研究通常集中在自愿记忆上，即有目的检索的信息。很少有研究调查与非自愿记忆相关的遗忘，即没有预先检索就自发出现在脑海中的记忆。本研究的目的是调查线索鲜明度和时间流逝对场景图片的非自愿和自愿记忆的可及性的影响。对于这两种类型的检索，我们在几分钟、一天和七天后检查了正确记忆的频率；在研究 2 中，我们还在三天后检查了频率。在这两项研究和两种检索类型中，鲜明的线索比不鲜明的线索产生了更好的记忆访问，并且记忆频率随着保留时间的增加而系统地下降。在最短的保留间隔内，自愿检索比非自愿检索产生了更大的记忆访问，但一周后，这种优势就消失了。研究结果表明，随着时间的推移，事件记忆变得更加依赖线索，这限制了与更长延迟的自愿检索相关的策略搜索的有益效果。
