Abstract: People often share their past events and experiences together in a social context. When speakers selectively retrieve certain parts of information from experienced events, it causes listeners to forget some relevant but non-retrieved information. This phenomenon is called socially shared retrieval-induced forgetting (SS-RIF). Based on the theory of correlated costs and benefits (CCB), this study explored the effect of response inhibition ability on SS-RIF, in order to clarify listeners' cognitive mechanism of SS-RIF.
In the experiment, a mixed design of 3 (response inhibition ability: high, medium, low) × 2 (interactive role: speaker, listener) × 4 (item type: Rp+, Nrp+, Rp-, Nrp-) was adopted, in which response inhibition ability was a between-group variable, while interactive role and item type were within-participants variables. The dependent variable was the proportion of correct recall in the final recall test. At the beginning of the formal experiment, 72 participants completed the stop signal task. According to the length of the stop signal reaction time, they were divided into three groups: high, medium and low level of response inhibition ability groups. The participants in each group were paired according to their gender requirements. Afterwards, they were instructed to perform a retrieval practice paradigm, including three phases. First, the subjects independently learned wordlists. Then, they conducted retrieval practice for certain examples from certain categories, with one participant being the speaker and the other being the listener. At last, the final recall test was administered according to the category clues individually.
The results showed that participants with high levels of response inhibition ability presented a significant RIF effect, while those with low levels of inhibition ability appeared no RIF effect. However, participants with low levels of inhibition ability showed a significant SS-RIF effect, while those with high levels of inhibition ability did not. With the decrease of response inhibition ability, the effect of SS-RIF gradually increased.
According to the viewpoint of CCB, the inhibition mechanism and the non-inhibition mechanism are interdependent and mutually restricted in the cost effect and benefit effect. The inhibition of processing leads to the reduction of non-inhibition, and vice versa. This result supports a non-inhibitory explanation. Listeners with low levels of response inhibition ability enhance the association between the target item and the category cue during retrieval practice. In the final recall test, the listeners show non-inhibitory forgetting of the other competing items. In other words, the non-inhibition mechanism has a stronger effect on SS-RIF, especially in those with low levels of response inhibition ability. However, studies have shown that RIF is more influenced by the inhibition mechanism, which indicates differences between the cognitive mechanism under RIF and SS-RIF. This study further reveals the cognitive mechanism of SS-RIF and attaches importance to the correlated costs and benefits problem on the SS-RIF effect, which is of great significance to the study of SS-RIF and provides some valuable references for future studies.

Key words: socially shared retrieval-induced forgetting, the correlated costs and benefits, inhibition mechanism, non-inhibition mechanism, response inhibition

摘要： 说者对目标项目的选择性提取会导致听者对非目标项目的遗忘,即为社会分享型提取诱发遗忘。研究结合记忆提取的相关代价与效益观点,将被试按照反应抑制能力的高中低分为三组,发现只有低反应抑制能力的听者才表现出社会分享型提取诱发遗忘;且随着个体反应抑制能力的下降,社会分享型提取诱发遗忘效应逐渐增大。以上结果支持了非抑制机制对低反应抑制人群出现社会分享型提取诱发遗忘的关键作用。

关键词: 社会分享型提取诱发遗忘, 相关代价与效益, 抑制机制, 非抑制机制, 反应抑制