What is the independent variable in this memory experiment?

Question

I am planning the following memory experiment:

Participants study a list of words, a random half of which are followed by an instruction to remember and the other half by an instruction to forget. Afterwards, they are given a recognition memory test which includes words that they have previously studied, unstudied words that sound similar to studied words they had been instructed to remember, unstudied words that sound similar to studied words they had been instructed to forget, and unstudied words that are unrelated to studied words. Participants have to respond "yes" to words they recognize as having studied regardless of the associated memory instruction (remember or forget) and "no" to the words they don't.

If participants falsely recognize (respond "yes") to more similar sounding unstudied words than unrelated unstudied words it is taken as evidence that they encoded the sound of the words they studied. Comparing "yes" responses between unstudied words that sound similar to remember instructed study words and those that sound similar to forget instructed study words can reveal whether the process of remembering or forgetting is more likely to lead to the encoding of sound.

With the above analyses in mind it would make sense that the dependent variable is the "yes" response. But is the independent variable the memory instruction? the type of unstudied word on the recognition test? or something else?

Answer 1

It seems this experiment is trying to test two different things:

If participants falsely recognize (respond "yes") to more similar sounding unstudied words than unrelated unstudied words it is taken as evidence that they encoded the sound of the words they studied.

For this part of the experiment, the independent variable is the type of word on the recognition test, specifically whether the words on the recognition test sound similar to the studied words or not. In this case, the dependent variable is the likelihood of recognizing the words, with the hypothesis being that participants will be more likely to recognize words that sound similar to the studied words than words that are unrelated to the studied words.

Comparing "yes" responses between unstudied words that sound similar to remember instructed study words and those that sound similar to forget instructed study words can reveal whether the process of remembering or forgetting is more likely to lead to the encoding of sound.

For this part of the experiment, the independent variable is the memory-instruction (and whether words on the test sound like remember-instructed or forget-instructed words, since these variables go hand-in-hand). In this case, the dependent variable is still the likelihood of recognizing the words, with the hypothesis (probably) being that participants will be more likely to recognize words that sound similar to remember-instructed words than words that sound similar to forget-instructed words.

Edit: I just realized you designed the experiment. I would recommend choosing a single hypothesis because there seem to be two hypotheses and corresponding independent variables which makes things kind of confusing.