Attempting to retrieve a target from memory via a retrieval cue can cause competition from the cue's associates, which might block the target. A 1994 study by Anderson, Bjork, and Bjork demonstrated retrieval-induced forgetting for competing associates and suggested that inhibitory control resolving competition causes the forgetting. A 2011 study by Storm, Angello, and Bjork found forgetting for incorrect associates following creative problem solving. This thesis investigated whether such forgetting is also the result of inhibitory control. Competition was manipulated by instructing participants to remember or forget incorrect associates before working on a Remote Associates Test problem. If problem-solving-induced forgetting is caused by inhibition, then to-be-remembered associates should suffer more forgetting than to-be-forgotten associates. Overall, forgetting occurred for incorrect associates participants were instructed to remember and forget. However, the first quartile of trials showed forgetting only for to-be-remembered associates following longer problem solving durations, suggesting a possible role of inhibitory control as an active means to overcome fixation in creative problem solving.

<p>In directed forgetting research, participants are instructed to forget information recently learned, and asked instead to remember new information given later. When asked to recall both the to-be-remembered and the to-be-forgotten information, participants successfully exhibit directed forgetting by recalling more to-be-remembered material, than to-be-forgotten material. In the present study, two directed forgetting list method experiments were conducted on undergraduate students of psychology (n = 25; n = 78). The aim of the study was to see if retrieval inhibition between participants with or without traumatic childhood experiences differed, when presented with negative or positive words. All participants were screened for childhood trauma with the CTQ-SF. The participants in the second experiment were additionally screened for dissociation with the DES-II. While Experiment 1, possibly due to small sample size failed to attain a directed forgetting effect, Experiment 2 succeeded. The issue of childhood trauma did not influence the directed forgetting effect.</p>

In directed forgetting research, participants are instructed to forget information recently learned, and asked instead to remember new information given later. When asked to recall both the to-be-remembered and the to-be-forgotten information, participants successfully exhibit directed forgetting by recalling more to-be-remembered material, than to-be-forgotten material. In the present study, two directed forgetting list method experiments were conducted on undergraduate students of psychology (n = 25; n = 78). The aim of the study was to see if retrieval inhibition between participants with or without traumatic childhood experiences differed, when presented with negative or positive words. All participants were screened for childhood trauma with the CTQ-SF. The participants in the second experiment were additionally screened for dissociation with the DES-II. While Experiment 1, possibly due to small sample size failed to attain a directed forgetting effect, Experiment 2 succeeded. The issue of childhood trauma did not influence the directed forgetting effect.