| Abstract: | Determinants of cue-dependent forgetting were examined in four experiments. The variability in meaning of retrieval cues was proposed as one central factor underlying cue-dependent forgetting. The results of Experiment 1 demonstrated that the instructions to the subjects to focus their generation on certain distinctive properties of the target items reduced the variability in meaning of the generated cues. Experiment 2 revealed that the properties generated under these instructions served as very effective cues after retention intervals up to 6 weeks. Experiments 3 and 4 demonstrated that the rate of forgetting was significantly lower when distinctive, in contrast to nondistinctive, retrieval cues were provided at delayed tests. Cue distinctiveness was proposed as an alternative to the traditional context-reinstatement approach for optimizing cue–trace compatibility. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
