Retrieval-induced forgetting

Does retrieval of a specific episode in memory affect the remembering of related episodes? For instance, is it advisable, immediately prior to an exam, to retrieve some of the course material to co-activate the other material, or does such selective memory retrieval rather have a detrimental effect on memory of the related information? Intuitively, one may assume that the effect of selective memory retrieval should mostly promote retrieval of related episodes, and indeed, prominent models of memory from the 1960s and 1970s are well in line with such a notion, suggesting that activation of a specific episode in memory facilitates activation of related episodes (Collins & Loftus, 1975). Moreover, empirical evidence from eyewitness memory research suggests that active retrieval of some previously experienced episodes or events can benefit memory of other episodes or events (Geiselman, Fisher, MacKinnon, & Holland, 1985). However, since the early 1970s, numerous studies have also found evidence for the seemingly paradoxical feature of human memory that, in a variety of situations, recalling previously learned information can impede our ability to recall related information. Evidence for such retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) has arisen mainly from two experimental tasks: the output-interference task (Roediger, 1974) and the retrieval-practice task (Anderson, Bjork, & Bjork, 1994).