Two replications of Wiechert et al.'s (2023) online Think/No-Think study in undergraduate students.

Abstract

The Think/No-Think (TNT) task examines the effects of attempts at suppressing particular stimuli. First, participants learn cue-target word pairs. Subsequently, they either recall (Think trials) or avoid thinking about targets whatsoever (No-Think trials) in response to cues. The critical finding is that No-Think targets are recalled less well than Baseline items (i.e., Suppression-Induced Forgetting; SIF). Wiechert et al.'s [(2023). Suppression-induced forgetting: A pre-registered replication of the think/no-think paradigm. Memory (Hove, England), 31(7), 989-1002] null-findings in Prolific workers using online video calls casted doubts on the robustness of the effect. We adapted their procedure in two replication studies testing undergraduate psychology students. The first study (N = 54) adapted Wiechert's procedure to an in-person laboratory setting using Same Probe (SP) recall and found evidence for SIF. Hypothesizing that an online test should yield SIF in undergraduates as well, study 2 replicated both the in-person laboratory (n = 54) and online (n = 54) procedures. The results suggested evidence for SIF in the in-lab setting, yet no evidence was observed in the online setting. As exploratory Bayesian analyses showed conclusive evidence for a null effect, this pattern of results does not imply that the in-lab and online settings actually differed. Yet, overall, the results cast doubts on the generalisability of the SIF-effect .