Forgetting to forget: On the duration of voluntary suppression of neutral and emotional memories

TY - JOUR

T1 - Forgetting to forget: On the duration of voluntary suppression of neutral and emotional memories

AU - Nørby, Simon

AU - Lange, Martin

AU - Larsen, Axel

N1 - Paper id:: doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2009.10.002

PY - 2010/1

Y1 - 2010/1

N2 - Can we control the content of our memory and forget what we do not want to think about by an act ofwill? If so, is forgetting temporary or permanent, and is it independent of the nature of what we wish toforget? Using Anderson and Green’s (2001) ‘‘think/no-think” paradigm with neutral and emotionalnouns, we found in agreement with other studies that memory for neutral words was reduced instantlyupon repeated attempts at suppression. However, the effect was temporary and vanished after a period ofone week, which strongly suggests that intended memory suppression interferes with immediate retrievalbut does not lead to long-term forgetting. Furthermore, the amount of training that clearly reducedimmediate recall of neutral items did not at all reduce recall of emotional items. This finding is in accordancewith the notion that emotional items have a higher degree of salience and tend to attract moreattention than neutral items.

AB - Can we control the content of our memory and forget what we do not want to think about by an act ofwill? If so, is forgetting temporary or permanent, and is it independent of the nature of what we wish toforget? Using Anderson and Green’s (2001) ‘‘think/no-think” paradigm with neutral and emotionalnouns, we found in agreement with other studies that memory for neutral words was reduced instantlyupon repeated attempts at suppression. However, the effect was temporary and vanished after a period ofone week, which strongly suggests that intended memory suppression interferes with immediate retrievalbut does not lead to long-term forgetting. Furthermore, the amount of training that clearly reducedimmediate recall of neutral items did not at all reduce recall of emotional items. This finding is in accordancewith the notion that emotional items have a higher degree of salience and tend to attract moreattention than neutral items.

KW - Faculty of Social Sciences

U2 - 10.1016/j.actpsy.2009.10.002

DO - 10.1016/j.actpsy.2009.10.002

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 19906363

SN - 0001-6918

VL - 133

SP - 73

EP - 80

JO - Acta Psychologica

JF - Acta Psychologica

ER -