Are stronger memories forgotten more slowly? No evidence that memory strength influences the rate of forgetting

Haggar Cohen-Dallal; Isaac Fradkin; Yoni Pertzov

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0200292

Are stronger memories forgotten more slowly? No evidence that memory strength influences the rate of forgetting

Haggar Cohen-Dallal, Isaac Fradkin, Yoni Pertzov

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

10 Scopus citations

Abstract

Information stored in visual short-term memory is used ubiquitously in daily life; however, it is forgotten rapidly within seconds. When more items are to be remembered, they are forgotten faster, potentially suggesting that stronger memories are forgotten less rapidly. Here we tested this prediction with three experiments that assessed the influence of memory strength on the rate of forgetting of visual information without manipulating the number of items. Forgetting rate was assessed by comparing the accuracy of reports in a delayed-estimation task following relatively short and long retention intervals. In the first experiment, we compared the forgetting rate of items that were directly fixated, to items that were not. In Experiments 2 and 3 we manipulated memory strength by extending the exposure time of one item in the memory array. As expected, direct fixation and longer exposure led to better accuracy of reports, reflecting stronger memory. However, in all three experiments, we did not find evidence that increased memory strength moderated the forgetting rate.

Original language	English
Article number	e0200292
Journal	PLoS ONE
Volume	13
Issue number	7
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0200292
State	Published - Jul 2018
Externally published	Yes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Cohen-Dallal et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Funding

This research was supported by an Israel Science Foundation grant (1747/14) to YP, as well as the China-Israel Cooperative Scientific Research grant (3-13562) to YP. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Funding:ThisresearchwassupportedbyanIsrael ScienceFoundationgrant(1747/14)toYP,aswell astheChina-IsraelCooperativeScientificResearch grant(3-13562)toYP.Thefundershadnorolein studydesign,datacollectionandanalysis,decision topublish,orpreparationofthemanuscript.

Funders	Funder number
German-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development	3-13562
Israel Science Foundation	1747/14

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Are stronger memories forgotten more slowly? No evidence that memory strength influences the rate of forgetting

Abstract

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