On the cost and benefit of taking it out of context: Modeling the inhibition associated with directed forgetting

Abstract

Forgetting can occur as the result of unconscious or automatic memory processes or as the result of conscious control. The later form of forgetting is often referred to as suppression, repression, or inhibition, and it is investigated in the laboratory using the directed forgetting procedure. The authors describe and empirically test the first formal model of directed forgetting, implemented within the framework of the Search of Association Memory Theory (SAM). The critical assumption is that episodic memory can be suppressed by a conscious attempt to alter the mental context in which new memories are encoded. The present model accounts for both veridical and erroneous free recall performance