Biomedical subjects

Martina Zellner

Publications and source records attributed to Martina Zellner.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Inhibitory deficits in older adults: list-method directed forgetting revisited.

In list-method directed forgetting, participants are cued to intentionally forget a previously studied list while remembering a subsequently presented 2nd list. Results from prior research are inconclusive on whether older adults show deficits in this type of task. In 3 experiments, the authors reexamined the issue and compared younger and older adults' responsiveness to the forget cue. Across the experiments, the forget cue was varied within and between participants, the 2 lists were unrelated and related to each other, and recall of the lists was required simultaneously and successively. In none of the 3 experiments did any age-related difference in directed forgetting performance emerge. List-method directed forgetting is assumed to reflect retrieval inhibition. The present results thus challenge the proposal of a general inhibitory deficit in older adults' memory performance.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

When remembering causes forgetting: retrieval-induced forgetting as recovery failure.

Retrieval practice on a subset of previously learned material can cause forgetting of the unpracticed material and make it inaccessible to consciousness. Such inaccessibility may arise because the material is no longer sampled from the set of to-be-recalled items, or, though sampled, its representation is not complete enough to be recovered into consciousness. In 2 experiments, it was examined whether retrieval-induced forgetting reflects a sampling or recovery failure by studying the time course of cued recall in this type of situation. Although retrieval practice reduced recall totals of the unpracticed items, in both experiments, the forgetting was not accompanied by an effect on the items' response latencies. This pattern of results is consistent with the view that inhibited items are successfully sampled but, because of a reduction in their activation level, do not exceed the recovery threshold.

Humans↗

PubMed2005

Intact retrieval inhibition in children's episodic recall.

Young children are assumed to be inefficient inhibitors in a number of cognitive tasks. In two experiments, we examined whether such deficits extend to children's episodic recall. We used two inhibition paradigms: retrieval-induced forgetting, the detrimental effect of retrieval practice with a subset of learned items on recall of the unpracticed items, and part-list cuing, the detrimental effect of the presentation of a subset of learned items on recall of the remaining items. In both experiments, the inhibitory effects were compared across three age groups: first or second graders, fourth graders, and young adults. The two children groups showed the same amounts of retrieval-induced forgetting and part-list cuing as the adult group, pointing to intact retrieval inhibition in young children's episodic recall. These results parallel very recent results on older adults' episodic recall, suggesting that both retrieval-induced forgetting and part-list cuing develop early in life and remain intact for the greater part of the lifespan.

Child↗