Human memory experiments
Can remembering make you forget?
By The Konshus Team
The short answer
Yes: selectively recalling some information can make related, unpracticed information harder to retrieve later, an effect called retrieval-induced forgetting. Experiments show reduced accessibility under particular conditions, not proof that the underlying memories have been erased.
Imagine a family that always tells the same vacation story. Everyone remembers the missed turn and the roadside rescue. But ask about a quieter afternoon from the same trip, and the conversation stalls. This invented scene illustrates a question researchers can test: could rehearsing one part of an experience make another part harder to find?
Remembering usually sounds like preservation. Yet recall is also selection. Several memories may fit the same cue, and retrieving one does not necessarily leave its neighbors unchanged. Laboratory studies reveal a surprising combination: the selected answer can become easier to remember while related answers become less accessible.
How did researchers test retrieval-induced forgetting?
In 1994, Michael Anderson, Robert Bjork, and Elizabeth Bjork reported experiments in which people first studied category–word pairs, such as FRUIT–ORANGE and FRUIT–BANANA, along with words from other categories. The essential design separated learning from selective retrieval practice.
During practice, participants recovered only some words from some categories. A partial cue such as FRUIT–OR____ could prompt them to produce ORANGE. Later tests created three groups: practiced words, unpracticed words from practiced categories, and baseline words from categories that received no practice.
The decisive comparison was between the last two groups. Related, unpracticed words were recalled less well than baseline words. Practicing orange helped orange, but other studied fruit words could become harder to retrieve. The unpracticed neighbors performed worse than an untouched reference group—evidence of a cost associated with selectively retrieving related information.
Does harder recall mean a memory was erased?
No. The experiments measured what participants could retrieve on later tests. They did not establish that a memory’s underlying trace had been destroyed. Persistence of a recall difficulty is not the same as proof of permanent loss.
One influential explanation involves inhibition: when several memories compete for a cue, cognitive control may reduce the accessibility of competitors so the desired answer can emerge. Other accounts emphasize blocking by the strengthened answer, or the context created during practice. A 2014 meta-analysis by Kou Murayama and colleagues broadly supported inhibition-based explanations while identifying challenges to simple versions of them.
The careful conclusion is that the effect is better established than any single explanation of it.
Should you stop using practice tests?
No. In 2006, Henry Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke showed that actively recalling studied material could improve long-term retention compared with repeatedly studying it. Retrieving an answer can strengthen that answer while also making some related, unpracticed answers harder to access. Both can be true at once.
The narrower lesson is that repeatedly retrieving only a selected part of a subject does not tell us what will happen to every other part. Feeling fluent with familiar answers is not the same as broad access to everything originally learned.
Can someone else’s remembering affect yours?
In 2007, Alexandru Cuc, Jonathan Koppel, and William Hirst found that listeners later showed reduced recall for related information that speakers had left unmentioned—information the listeners had originally encountered. This is called socially shared retrieval-induced forgetting.
In 2013, Charles Stone and colleagues reported the effect with emotional and unemotional autobiographical memories, including experiments with intimate couples. These findings do not show that every family conversation deletes memories, or that all listeners respond alike. They show that, under some conditions, selectively remembering together can change which related details people can later retrieve.
Are emotional memories protected from this effect?
Not entirely. Alin Coman, David Manier, and William Hirst studied selective recounting of memories concerning September 11, 2001, and found evidence of retrieval-induced forgetting in both speakers and listeners. Participants did not forget the event; the effect concerned access to particular details.
There is no need to stop sharing meaningful stories. But a story that is true and well practiced can still be incomplete. Remembering its familiar highlights and having access to its quieter details are different achievements.
What does this mean for studying and everyday life?
The practical lesson is not to avoid recalling things. It is to notice what your recall leaves out. A student who quizzes themselves on only half the chapter may sharpen that half while the other half fades from easy reach. Rotating which material you practice, and returning to the parts you skipped, keeps more of a topic within reach.
The same idea applies to shared stories. When a family, team, or friend group retells an event the same way each time, the retold details grow vivid while quieter details become harder to bring up. Asking an open question, such as what else happened that day, gives the less rehearsed parts of an experience a chance to come back.
None of this means your memory is failing. Selective recall is how a mind keeps the most used information quick to find. Knowing that selection has a cost simply helps you decide when a fuller picture is worth the effort.
In one sentence
- Retrieval-induced forgetting
- Reduced later accessibility of related, unpracticed information following selective retrieval of other information.
- Inhibition
- A proposed process in which cognitive control reduces the accessibility of memories competing with a desired response.
- Socially shared retrieval-induced forgetting
- A pattern in which a speaker’s selective remembering reduces a listener’s later recall of related information the listener previously encountered.
Key takeaways
- Selective retrieval can strengthen practiced information while reducing access to related, unpracticed information.
- Reduced recall does not demonstrate that a memory has been permanently erased.
- Inhibition, blocking, and context accounts offer competing explanations.
- Under some conditions, selective remembering can affect listeners as well as speakers.