The Directed Forgetting Of Young And Older Adults

Directed forgetting, also known as intentional forgetting, is one kind of effective cognitive mechanisms regulating consciousness.In recent years, the research on directed forgetting has gradually become a hot issue in psychology.The subjects of this study were young people and older people.The study methods were the “items” and “lists”.Controllingthree kinds of tasks(recognition, recall, supplement), we compared the levels of directed forgetting between older people and young people. The results has enriched the findings in this research field. In the “items” experiment, we found that the young and oldersubjects who fulfilling the three tasks have the directed forgetting effect. There was a interactive effect between the subjects’ age and the attributes of the emotional words; In the “list” experiment, we have not found the evidence of directed forgetting both in the young and older people when they facing the “recognition” task, and the interactive effect between the instruction and the content was not obvious. There was directed forgetting both in the young and older people when they facing the “recall” task.