Measures of Forgetting

This chapter provides an overview of some of the most common methods used in the study of forgetting, focusing in particular on behavioral measures of forgetting in long-term memory. It discusses the ways in which forgetting is measured and outlines some of the most basic mechanisms thought to be responsible for forgetting and the various methodological approaches that have been used to study them. In most studies, forgetting is measured as the difference in the proportion of items that are recalled in one condition compared to that of another condition. Most of the research on forgetting has been designed with the specific goal of uncovering the mechanisms by which experiences once remembered become forgotten. The chapter presents a few of the ways in which researchers have sought to separate the influence of time from some of the factors with which it tends to be confounded.