Selective voluntary forgetting in young and older adults

Aguirre, Carmen; Gomez-Ariza, Carlos J.; Bajo, Ma. Teresa; Andrés, Pilar; Mazzoni, Giuliana

Abstract

Aging is thought to involve a decline in executive-control capacities, although evidence regarding this claim is not always clear. Thus, although studies exist that suggest impoverished inhibitory memory control in older adults relative to younger adults, experiments with the list-method direct forgetting procedure have mostly failed to show adult-age differences in voluntary forgetting. In the present study we aimed to further study this issue by comparing young-old and young adults’ performance with the selective directed forgetting (SDF) procedure, which we assumed to involve higher demands of executive control than the standard nonselective procedure. Thus, on the basis of previous studies showing that a critical factor in finding adult-age differences in executive-control tasks is the overall challenge posed by the tasks, we predicted less SDF in older adults than in younger adults. Supporting our hypothesis, across three experiments we show evidence of older adults’ impoverished capacity to voluntarily forget episodic memories, although only when the task requires selective forgetting. Ours join other findings to suggest that sensitiveness to detect adult-age differences in cognitive control may strongly depend on the executive-control demands imposed by tasks.

Citation

Aguirre, C., Gomez-Ariza, C. J., Bajo, M. T., Andrés, P., & Mazzoni, G. (2014). Selective voluntary forgetting in young and older adults. Psychology and Aging, 29(1), 128-139. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0035598

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: 2014-03
• Deposit Date: Apr 28, 2015
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 28, 2015
• Journal: Psychology and aging
• Print ISSN: 0882-7974
• Electronic ISSN: 1939-1498
• Publisher: American Psychological Association
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 29
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 128-139
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/a0035598
• Keywords: Age differences, Forgetting, Cognitive control, Aging, Episodic memory
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/373110
• Publisher URL: http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=search.displayrecord&uid=2014-09653-010
• Additional Information: This article may not exactly replicate the final version published in the APA journal. It is not the copy of record.