Testing the context-change account of list-method directed forgetting: The role of retention interval

• People can voluntarily forget memory contents when cued to do so.
• People can also forget memory contents by mental context change.
• Forgetting as induced by mental context change dissipates after a few minutes.
• In contrast, forgetting as induced by a forget cue still arises after a day.
• The observed dissociation challenges current accounts of voluntary forgetting.

People can voluntarily forget previously studied material when cued to do so. Such directed forgetting may arise because the forget cue induces a change in mental context, thus causing context-dependent forgetting. This context-change account predicts that both context-dependent forgetting and directed forgetting should be relatively transient and be reduced, if not eliminated, after prolonged retention interval. In each of two experiments, participants studied two lists of items and between study of the lists were asked to remember or forget the first list, or engage in an imagination task. After a short or a prolonged retention interval recall of the first list items was tested. Whereas imagination induced forgetting that was restricted to short retention intervals, the forget cue induced forgetting that was present regardless of retention interval. The finding challenges the context-change account and indicates that the effects of a forget cue and induced mental context change can be nonequivalent.