Assessing the inhibitory account of retrieval-induced forgetting with implicit-memory tests

Abstract

Five experiments examined whether retrieval-induced-forgetting effects are observed for implicit tests of memory. In each experiment participants first studied category-exemplar paired associates, then practiced retrieval for a subset of items from a subset of categories before finally completing memory tests for all the studied items. In standard fashion, inhibition was measured as the performance difference of unpracticed items from practiced categories and unpracticed items from unpracticed categories. Across the 5 experiments poorer performance for unpracticed items was seen in conceptual implicit memory (category generation and category matching) but not in perceptual implicit memory (stem completion, perceptual identification). Thus, retrieval-induced-forgetting effects are limited to tests of conceptual memory.