The influence of distinctive processing on retrieval-induced forgetting

Abstract

Recall of a portion of a previously experienced list benefits subsequent recall of that portion of the list but leads to poorer recall of nonpracticed items from the same set (Anderson, Bjork, and Bjork, 1994). One explanation for this retrieval-induced forgetting is that during practice of part of a set, the nonpracticed items compete for recall and are suppressed; this suppression process inhibits later recall of the nonpracticed items. Two experiments were conducted to investigate the relationship between distinctive processing of the original set and retrieval-induced forgetting, on the assumption that distinctive processing reduces response competition. In the first experiment, distinctive processing induced by difference judgments among the studied items did reduce forgetting relative to a standard encoding task and a similarity judgment task. In fact, the difference judgment task completely eliminated retrieval-induced forgetting. In the second experiment, the similarity judgment task was analyzed in relation to a task assumed to foster associative integration (Anderson and McCulloch, 1999). Even though the similarity judgment met the requirements for associative integration, retrieval-induced forgetting persisted following similarity judgment. The results are consistent with the view that distinctive processing benefits memory within an organizational context (Hunt and McDaniel, 1993; Smith and Hunt, in press).