Abstract
Retrieving information in memory can impair recall performance for related information on a subsequent test, which is known as retrieval-induced forgetting and is caused by inhibition to resolve competition during retrieval. The current study examined whether individuals with autistic traits demonstrated retrieval-induced forgetting. Participants in typically developing population with high and low scores on the Japanese Autism-Spectrum Quotient questionnaire (AQ; Wakabayashi et al., 2006) studied category-exemplar pairs and then retrieved one third of the studied pairs. Later, a category-plus-stem-cued recall test of all the studied pairs was conducted. Retrieval-induced forgetting was only observed in participants with low AQ scores, but not in participants with high AQ scores. The results suggested that individuals with autistic traits could not inhibit the competitors during memory retrieval.
