Does Directed Forgetting Moderate Collaborative Memory?

In collaborative memory studies,it is usually found that collaborative group recall less than nominal group,which is known as collaborative inhibition.However,collaboration always benefits later individual retrieval,and this effect is termed as post-collaborative recall benefits.Previous studies on collaborative memory have found that controlling the encoding of study materials will influence collaborative inhibition.Therefore,the present study adopted item method directed forgetting paradigm to control the encoding of study materials,and added three variables of emotion valence,recall task and group interaction,to explore whether directed forgetting moderates collaborative memory.Two experiments in the present study were designed identically,expect for group interaction.The members of collaborative group in experiment 1 adopted a free-flowing retrieval procedure,whereas in experiment 2 they adopted a turn-taking retrieval procedure.During the study phase,participants studied words of positive,negative and neutral valence.They were asked to remember the RRR items and its colors,and forget the FFF items and its colors.During the test phase,they were asked to recall all the studied items they can think of(item recall)as well as their displayed colors(source retrieval).The first recall phase was performed either individually or collaboratively,while the second was all individually.The results of experiment 1 showed that directed forgetting did moderate collaborative inhibition and post-collaborative recall benefits,with weaker collaborative inhibition and greater post-collaborative recall benefits for TBR items.In addition,the influnce of directed forgetting on collaborative inhibition was moderated by emotional valence.In Experiment 2,we found no difference in collaborative inhibition of TBR and TBF items.The joint analysis of the two experiments showed that this was because the turn-taking group recalled less TBR items than the free-flowing group did.We also found that the free-flowing group benefitted more from post-collaborative recall benefits and error pruning.Together,the above results provide mixed support for the retrieval strategy disruption account.Moreover,we found that collaborative inhibition was greater for item recall than for source retrieval in both of the two experiments,giving support to the dual-process model.