ABSTRACT
It should be clear from chapter 1 that research on intentional forgetting has a long tradition tied to the directed-forgetting paradigm (see MacLeod, this volume). In fact, for many researchers and for many years, “directed forgetting” of words and syllables was research on intentional forgetting. Although directed-forgetting research is critical to understanding certain aspects of intentional forgetting, it is now also evident that intentional forgetting means different things to different researchers. For example, Johnson (1994) noted that intentional forgetting does not always mean forgetting in the sense of losing access to information designated to-be-forgotten. In fact, many studies that can be categorized as intentional forgetting studies are not even concerned with the ultimate retrieval of the to-be-forgotten information. Moreover, since the earliest studies of directed forgetting were carried out over 30 years ago (see Muther, 1965; see Bjork, 1972, and Epstein, 1972, for early reviews), the study of intentional forgetting has changed in important ways, employing a variety of methodologies and being driven by a number of theoretical perspectives.
