TO FORGET OR NOT TO FORGET - THE EFFECT OF PROBABILITY OF TEST ON DIRECTED FORGETTING

Two experiments investigated how individuals use explicit memory cues that designate different probabilities of test. As in typical directed forgetting studies, subjects received words explicitly cued as having either a 0% or a 100% chance of being on a subsequent memory test (i. e. forget and remember cues, respectively). In addition, some words we re explicitly cued as having the potential to be either forgotten or r emembered (i.e. a 50% cue). Recall of 50% words was between that of 0% and 100% words. In addition, the presence of 50% words lowered recall of the 100% words compared to that of a control group that did not re ceive the 50% words, but received the same number of 100% words. A thi nk-aloud task indicated that these results were due to the 50% words b eing treated like either 100% or 0% words at encoding. The results are discussed in terms of the effect of different probabilities of test o n the strategic processing and representation of information.