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memory
You can deliberately choose to forget useless information.
Directed forgetting shows that you can reduce the accessibility of specific information when given a signal to do so.
In 1970, studies showed that participants who were told a list of items was no longer needed performed worse on recall tasks than those told to keep the information. The brain appears to actively inhibit the retrieval of items labeled as irrelevant.
Your brain is an active editor of your own memory.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Robert Bjork, 1970
- What the check found
- Robert Bjork's 1970 research on intentional forgetting is a foundational study in cognitive psychology. The claim is well-supported by peer-reviewed literature despite not being present in the provided context.
- Confidence
- Solid, with limits
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.