The ability to control both what we remember and what is forgotten can enhance memory. The present study used an item-method directed forgetting paradigm to investigate whether participants strategically remembered items they were responsible for remembering rather than items a hypothetical friend was responsible for remembering. Specifically, participants were presented with a 20-word list (either unrelated words or items to pack for a camping trip) with each word followed by a cue indicating whether the participant (You) or their “friend” (Friend) was responsible for remembering the word. When asked to recall all of the words, regardless of the cue, recall was sensitive to the You and Friend instructions such that participants demonstrated elevated recall for the items they were responsible for remembering, and participants also strategically organized retrieval by recalling You items before Friend items. Additionally, when asked to judge the importance of remembering each item, participants’ recall and recognition were sensitive to item importance regardless of cue. Taken together, the present experiments revealed that the strategic encoding of important information and the forgetting of less important, goal-irrelevant information can maximize memory utility and minimize negative consequences for forgetting. Thus, we provide evidence for a metacognitive process we are calling responsible forgetting, where people attempt to forget less consequential information and focus on remembering what is most important.

控制我们记得什么和忘记什么的能力可以增强记忆力。本研究使用项目方法定向遗忘范式来调查参与者是否战略性地记住了他们负责记住的项目，而不是假设的朋友负责记住的项目。具体来说，参与者会看到一个 20 字的列表（不相关的单词或露营旅行要打包的物品），每个单词后跟一个提示，表明参与者（你）或他们的“朋友”（朋友）是负责记住这个单词。当被要求回忆所有单词时，无论提示如何，回忆对你和朋友的指示都很敏感，因此参与者对他们负责记住的项目表现出较高的回忆，参与者还通过在朋友项目之前回忆你的项目来战略性地组织检索。此外，当被要求判断记住每个项目的重要性时，无论提示如何，参与者的回忆和识别都对项目重要性敏感。综上所述，目前的实验表明，重要信息的战略编码和对不太重要的、与目标无关的信息的遗忘可以最大限度地提高记忆效用，并最大限度地减少遗忘的负面影响。因此，我们为我们称之为的元认知过程提供了证据 目前的实验表明，重要信息的战略编码和对不太重要的、与目标无关的信息的遗忘可以最大限度地提高记忆效用，并最大限度地减少遗忘的负面影响。因此，我们为我们称之为的元认知过程提供了证据 目前的实验表明，重要信息的战略编码和对不太重要的、与目标无关的信息的遗忘可以最大限度地提高记忆效用，并最大限度地减少遗忘的负面影响。因此，我们为我们称之为的元认知过程提供了证据负责任的遗忘，人们试图忘记不太重要的信息，而专注于记住最重要的信息。