Changes in the conscious and unconscious influences of memory over time wer
e assessed in two experiments by using a variant of the process-dissociatio
n procedure. In both experiments, performance on a stem-completion task was
measured under both inclusion and exclusion instructions. Across the two e
xperiments, there were four different retention intervals: 2 minutes, 2 day
s, 2 weeks, and 2 months. The results indicated that conscious influences d
ecreased systematically across retention interval. In contrast, unconscious
influences of memory in the absence of conscious influences increased betw
een 2 minutes and 2 days, and then remained relatively stable from 2 days t
o 2 weeks to 2 months. These results stand in apparent contrast to those of
McBride and Dosher (1999), which showed equal rates of forgetting for cons
cious and unconscious influences of memory on performance. The implications
for models of the relation between conscious and unconscious influences of
memory on performance are discussed.