The role of intentional forgetting in reducing children's retroactive interference.

Full Abstract

Preschool and kindergarten children's retention of stories was examined in the presence of interfering information and instructions to forget. Children learned 2 stories and, 24 hr later, were asked to recall the 1st or 2nd story learned. Some of the children were instructed, either following acquisition or just prior to the retention test, to forget the 2nd, or interfering, story. A model was used to isolate storage and retrieval effects, and the results showed that (a) retroactive interference affected both storage- and retrieval-based forgetting rates for the younger children but only storage-based forgetting rates for the older children, (b) intentional forgetting reduced retroactive interference primarily by attenuating storage-based forgetting regardless of age, (c) intentional forgetting instructions were effective only at acquisition for preschoolers but at both acquisition and retention for kindergarteners, and (d) all children recalled the to-be-forgotten story as well as they recalled the to-be-remembered story. These results are interpreted in terms of reorganization and distinctiveness effects in storage.

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Author information

Author/s: Howe, Mark L (ML);

Affiliation: Centre of Excellence for Children and Adolescents With Special Needs, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. mark.howe@lakeheadu.ca

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: Developmental psychology (Dev Psychol), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2002-Jan; vol 38 (issue 1) : pp 3-14

Dates: Created 2002/01/24; Completed 2002/06/26; Revised 2006/11/15;

PMID: 11806700, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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