Inhibition Levels With Retrieval-induced Forgetting

Selectively retrieving an item associated with a cue from long-term memory reduces the accessibility of other items associated with the same cue,a phenomenon known as retrieval-induced forgetting(RIF).The current researches including three experiments,to study the relationship between retrieval-induced forgetting with inhibition levels,as well as the factors influence the degree of RIF.Researches of the three experiments as follows:Experiment 1 controlled the relationship between categories,investigated different inhibition levels of participators' RIF,cross-category inhibition and second-order inhibition,to investigate the cue independence of RIF.Experiment 2 manipulated the relationship between retrieval categories and non-practiced categories,to understand the numbers of competitive items between categories and the inhibition levels effect on RIF.Experiment 3 varied item strength on the study list by manipulating the rank of an item within its category,to discuss different inhibition levels of youth and the aged's participators,their RIF degree whether different under different item strength.Results are as follows:(1)RIF,cross-category inhibition and second-order inhibition appeared in high and low inhibition level group,supported the inhibition explanation that the cue independence of REF.(2)The numbers of competitive items between categories and the inhibition levels both influence RIF's degree,that is to say output interference and the inhibition ability both can influence RIF.(3)The influence on RIF of item strength were varied depend on the participations' inhibition ability both in youth and the aged.In youth,high inhibitions performed large RIF on high strength items because of the inhibition;low inhibitions performed large RIF on low strength items because of the output interference.About the aged,performed RIF on low strength items,also because of the output interference.Stand by the inhibitory theory and inhibitory deficit theory.