Avery Rizio '09 presented her second consecutive poster at the annual Psychonomic Society Meeting in Chicago on Nov. 15. Psychonomics is the annual gathering place for the top researchers in the field of cognitive psychology to discuss their research findings. The poster outlined the work Rizio conducted this past summer and is an extension of the work that she has been conducting over the past three years with Makiko Maeyama '09, Jennifer Sadowsky '08, Leigh Ercole '11, Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology Mark Oakes and Professor of Psychology Penny Yee. Previous work by Rizio and colleagues was presented in Long Beach, Calif., last November.
Rizio's research has explored the theoretical explanations for how people intentionally forget experiences. Past research has found that intentionally directing one to forget a set of recently learned items leads to reduced recall on a later test. Decreased recall of forget items (Directed Forgetting cost or DF cost) is often explained by inhibition of the entire learning experience rather than inadequate rehearsal and encoding of the items. That is, directions to forget are thought to inhibit or block retrieval rather than interrupt the learning and memory process.
Rizio's research has explored the theoretical explanations for how people intentionally forget experiences. Past research has found that intentionally directing one to forget a set of recently learned items leads to reduced recall on a later test. Decreased recall of forget items (Directed Forgetting cost or DF cost) is often explained by inhibition of the entire learning experience rather than inadequate rehearsal and encoding of the items. That is, directions to forget are thought to inhibit or block retrieval rather than interrupt the learning and memory process.
