El olvido inducido por la recuperaciónLa naturaleza de los procesos de inhibición en memoria

Resumen

Retrieving information from long-term memory can lead to forgetting previously irrelevant related information. Some have proposed that this retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) effect is mediated by inhibitory executive-control mechanisms recruited to overcome interference. To test this hypothesis the effect RIF obtained in a standard retrieval-practice condition was compared to that obtained from two different conditions where participants had to perform two concurrent updating tasks demanding executive attention. We also tested a group of bilinguals, exploring the neurophysiological activation related to a language selection task known to trigger inhibitory processes. Practice on a bilingual picture naming task induced forgetting of previously L2 practiced pictures in a group of low fluency bilinguals when tested in L1. This was related to a N200-inhibition-related component. Behavioral and neurophysiological results strongly suggest that inhibition involved in RIF is the result of executive-control processes.