Retrieval-induced forgetting: A developmental study

Two studies examined the possibility of retrieval-induced forgetting by 7-year-olds. Children heard a story while viewing pictures of events mentioned in the story, each highlighting objects drawn from two distinct semantic categories (e.g. animals and food). Over the next several days, children were asked the same yes/no questions about half the examples from one category and, finally, were tested for their memory of the complete set of examples from both categories. Both a category-cued recall test (Study 1) and a written recognition-memory test (Study 2) produced results suggestive of retrieval-induced forgetting. That is, children showed poorer memory for unpractised items from the practised category than for unpractised items from the other category. The severity of the effect did not differ reliably between the children and young adults, and was unaffected by whether practised items appeared before or after the unpractised competitors (Study 2). We consider the implications of these findings for competing views about retrieval-induced forgetting and the development of cognitive inhibition.