Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Science misconceptions persist across development and have long-term consequences for achievement. Researchers haveattempted to replace science misconceptions with correct information. Intentional forgetting, often studied using a directedforgetting (DF) paradigm, is one approach used to eliminate incorrect material. The present study aimed to identify whichscience misconceptions persist among adults and determine whether DF can be implemented to forget misconceptions. 147undergraduates saw two lists of 11 science statements. For each statement, they provided a truthfulness and confidencerating before receiving the correct True/False rating. Half were told to remember both lists; half were told to forget thefirst list and remember the second. Results revealed that although accuracy and confidence increased overall, there weresignificant differences between science domains and no observable DF effect. This suggests that science misconceptionsare even more persistent than previously thought, particularly for certain domains, and additional supports are needed tocorrect them.