what is repression?
an active mechanism to prevent remembering
what is Freudian repression?
“memories injurious to the ego are suppressed to avoid anxiety”
what was Wilkinson & Cargill’s (1955) study?
male and female participants told they are doing a personality study and as part of it they have to listen to a story containing a dream description
dream description either neutral or containing fairly obvious sexual imagery with an oedipal content
men have worse memory than women but only for the oedipal material
what is the Freudian interpretation of Wilkinson & Cargill’s (1955) study?
only men find the content stressful because only men have an Oedipus complex so men repress the content
what did McCullough et al (1976) find in relation to Wilkinson & Cargill’s (1955) study?
if participants weren’t told it was a personality experiment, it has no effect
what was Levinger & Clark’s (1961) experiment into general repression through arousal?
free association task with neutral or potentially emotion stimulus words
galvanic skin responses recorded to assess physiological arousal
item responses vary from person to person
free associates to neutral words recalled better than those to arousing words
but this is a test of memory for associates not stimuli themselves and memory for stimuli is generally better if arousing and there is also an immediate memory test and if Freudian repression existed to emotional events, it would show at long delays
what was Parkin, Lewinsohn & Folkard’s (1982) study into enhancement of long-term memory with arousal?
repeated Levinger & Clark experiment but with delayed condition added
at immediate testing, memory for associates to arousing words is poorer but after 7 days, it is better than for neutral ones
interpret through Action-Decrement Theory (Walker, 1958)
what is the Action-Decrement Theory (Walker, 1958)?
“memory traces take time to consolidate - physiological arousal increases the time for the trace to consolidate this, but may improve longer-term encoding”
what was Anderson, Wais & Gabrieli’s (2006) study into the enhancement of long-term memory by arousal?
shown neutral picture, inter stimulus interval (4 or 9 seconds), arousing picture, distractor
recognition memory tests for both neutral and arousing pictures after one week
retrograde arousal enhancement - memory for arousing pictures generally enhanced, memory for neutral pictures shortly before arousing ones enhanced, arousal enhanced remembering rather than knowing (Tulving’s distinction)
interpretation in terms of Perseveration-Consolidation Theory (McGaugh, 2006)
what was Finn & Roediger’s (2011) study into reconsolidation from subsequent arousal?
learn Swahili-English vocabulary pairs and tested with cued recall twice
at first test, successful retrieval followed by an arousing picture
vocabulary learning is enhanced by negative arousing pictures immediately after or 2 seconds after successful retrieval
but arousal doesn’t enhance performance when restudying items
what is weapon focus?
selective attention towards a threat
central/peripheral trade offs
what are Slamecka’s (1968) study into part list cueing?
encode 3 word lists - 30 rare words, 30 common words, 30 butterfly associates
recall with context - 15 words provided
recall in control condition - no words provided
part-list context impairs memory
context may be critical for encoding but not all context is helpful at retrieval
interpretation is in terms of both Retrieval Strategy Disruption and Active Inhibition in Storage of non-list items
what was Anderson, Bjork & Bjork’s (1994) study into retrieval induced forgetting?
encode category-exemplar pairs
practice retrieval of half the pairs
at final test, cued recall is at baseline for unpractised categories, enhanced for practiced exemplars of practiced categories but impaired for unpractised exemplars of practised categories
what is list-method directed forgetting?
control group
- learn list one
- …
- learn list two
- recall both lists
experimental group
- learn list one
- “forget list one”
- learn list two
- recall both lists
experimental group is worse at list one but better at list two
what is item-method directed forgetting?
peach - REMEMBER, apple - FORGET, cake - FORGET, horse - FORGET, blue - REMEMBER
REMEMBER items enhanced relative to FORGET items
how is item-method directed forgetting interpreted (Anderson, 2005)?
yields substantial REMEMBER-FORGET differences that can be observed in both recall and recognition
generally interpreted in terms of selective rehearsal of TBR items - an encoding effect rather than inhibition of items in storage
how is list-method directed forgetting interpreted (Anderson, 2005)?
yields large recall deficits for TBF lists relative to TBR or control lists
results clear in recall but often not observed in recognition tests
generally interpreted in terms of retrieval inhibition
items remain in memory (see intact recognition) but are actively inhibited from being recalled
what is the Think/No-Think task (Anderson & Green, 2001)?
learn 40 word-pairs then 0-16 practice trials of either Think or No-Think
Think - when you see ORDEAL say ROACH, respond
No-Think - fixate the cue word (ORDEAL) for 4 seconds but attempt to prevent ROACH from coming to mind, suppression
cued recall test - performance improves with repetitions of Think trials but declines with repetitions with repetitions of No-Think trials
what are suppression mechanisms?
generation of alternative associations - interference approach
inhibition of cue-target connection - weakened the association
direct inhibition of target - independent cue condition, INSECT - R, still shows inhibition thus supports explanations
what does success in inhibition appear to be correlated with?
active engagement of prefrontal cortex in suppressing hippocampal activation
individual differences in ability may explain variations in recovery from trauma
what has been shown about inhibition paradigms?
can be extended to memories for real events
actions, autobiographical memories
what could active suppression through No-Think or directed explain?
loss of memories from Childhood Sexual Abuse
what might inhibition be important for in everyday situations?
successful retrieval
other domains such as create problem solving
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introduction to perception46
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the visual pathway 155
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the visual pathway 245
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colour perception47
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beyond v121
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object recognition40
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face perception30
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false and recovered memories32
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encoding failures26
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effective encoding29
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storage failures25
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active forgetting23
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types of retrieval22
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improving retrieval22
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autobiographical memory21
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visual word recognition 133
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visual word recognition 267
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embodiment24
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shallow processing29
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perception and bayesian inference35
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bounded rationality35
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heuristics27
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attention and consciousness39
