Memory 5 - Active Forgetting

Question 1

Freudian Repression

Answer 1

• Repression: an active mechanism to prevent remembering
• Based on Freud’s ideas: “memories injurious to the ego are suppressed to avoid anxiety”

Question 2

Wilkinson & Cargill (1955)

Answer 2

• Male and female pp’s are told they are doing a personality study
• As part of it they listen to story containing a dream description
• Dream is either neutral, or contains fairly obvious sexual imagery with an oedipal content
• Result: men have worse memory than women, but only for oedipal material
• Freudian interpretation: only men find the content stressful, because only men can have an Oedipus complex, so men repress the content
• However, (McCullough et al, 1976) find that if pp’s are not told that the experiment is about personality, there is no effect
• E.g. No unconscious repression – results are just a self-presentational bias

Question 3

Enhancement of LTM with arousal

Answer 3

• Parkin, Lewinsohn & Folkard (1982) repeat the Levinger & Clark experiment, but with a delayed condition added
• At immediate testing memory for associates to arousing words is poorer, but after 7 days, memory for associates to arousing words is better than for neutral ones
• They interpret it through Action-Decrement Theory (Walker, 1958)
• “Memory traces take time to consolidate – physiological arousal increases the time for the trace to consolidate, but may improve longer-term encoding”

Question 3

General repression through arousal

Answer 3

• Experimental evidence from Levinger & Clark (1961)
• Free association task with neutral (e.g. CARROT) or potentially emotional stimulus words (e.g. ANGRY)
• 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 memory for the stimuli themselves. Memory for stimulus words generally is better if they are arousing
• This is also an immediate memory test – if Freudian repression existed to emotional event is should show at long delays

Question 4

Retrograde Arousal Enhancement: 3 facts

Answer 4

a) Memory for arousing pictures is generally enhanced as expected
b) Memory for neutral pictures shortly before arousing ones is enhanced
c) Arousal enhanced remembering rather than knowing (Tulving’s distinction)
- Interpretation in terms of Perseveration-Consolidation theory

Question 5

Reconsolidation from subsequent arousal

Answer 5

• Learn Swahili-English vocabulary pairs and tested with cued recall twice
• At first test, successful retrieval is followed by an arousing picture
• Vocabulary learning is enhanced by negative arousing pictures immediately after (experiment 1) or 2 seconds after (experiment 2) successful retrieval
• But arousal does not enhance performance while restudying items (experiment 3)

Question 6

Repression, arousal & memory conclusions

Answer 6

• Arousal has important influences on memory
• General enhancement for arousing materials compared to neutral
• Also ‘weapon focus’ – selective attention towards threat: central/ peripheral trade-offs
• Evidence for arousal-related consolidation of long-term memories and arousal helping the reconsolidation of labile memories
• BUT arousal generally enhances memory for items and associates at long retention intervals – no experimental support for general repression of negative stimuli/events

Question 7

Part list cueing: Slamecka (1968)

Answer 7

• Encode 3-word lists (30 rare words, 30 common words, 30 butterfly associates)
• Recall with context (15 words provided OR 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

Question 8

Retrieval induced forgetting

Answer 8

• Encode category-Exemplar pairs
• Practice retrieval of half the pairs
• At the final test cued recall is:
  a) At baseline for unpractised categories
  b) Enhanced for practiced exemplars for practiced categories
  c) But impaired for unpractised exemplars of practiced categories

Question 9

Directed forgetting: Bjork (1970) & Johnson (1994)

Answer 9

List-method directed forgetting:
1. Control group: Learn list 1 – Learn list 2 – Recall both lists
2. Experimental group: Learn list 1 – ‘Forget list 1’ – Learn list 2 – Recall both lists
- Experimental group is worse at list 1, and better at list 2
Item-method directed forgetting:
- Peach – REMEMBER, apple – FORGET, cake -FORGET, horse – FORGET, blue – REMEMBER, carrot – REMEMBER
- REMEMBER items enhanced relative to FORGET items

Question 10

Interpreting directed forgetting: Anderson (2005)

Answer 10

Item-method directed forgetting:
- This yields substantial REMEMBER – FORGET differences that can be observed in both recall and recognition
- Generally interpreted in terms of selective rehearsal of TBR items (i.e. an encoding effect rather than inhibition of items in storage)
List-method directed forgetting:
- This 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 but are actively inhibited from being recalled

Question 11

Direct suppression: The Think/No-Think task

Answer 11

• Anderson & Green (2001): Learn 40 word-pairs (e.g. ORDEAL – ROACH)
• Then 0 to 16 practice trials of wither think or No-Think
  a) Think: when you see ORDEAL, say ROACH (respond)
  b) No-Think: fixate the cue word (ORDEAL) for 4 seconds but attempt to prevent ROACH from coming to mind (suppress)
• Cued recall test: performance improves with repetitions of Think trials
• But declines with repetitions of No-Think trials

Question 12

Suppression mechanisms: Anderson & Green (2001)

Answer 12

• Three possible mechanisms:
  1. Generation of alternative associations
  2. Inhibition of Cue-Target connection
  3. Direct inhibition of target
• Independent cue condition still shows inhibition thus supports explanation direct suppression

Question 13

Practical implications of inhibition:

Answer 13

• Success in inhibition appears to be correlated with active engagement of prefrontal cortex in suppressing hippocampal activation. Individual differences in ability may explain variations in recovery from trauma
• Subsequent studies have shown that inhibition paradigms can be extended to memories for real events, autobiographical memories
• Active suppression through NO-THINK or Directed Forgetting could potentially explain loss of memories from Childhood Sexual Abuse
• In everyday situations inhibition may be important for successful retrieval, and other domains such as creative problems solving

Question 14

Active forgetting: Freud reclaimed?

Answer 14

• No evidence for traditional Freudian repression in the sense of automatic suppression of emotional material (No Automatic Emotional Repression)
  a) Emotional items generally well-remembered
  b) Even neutral items associated with arousal are generally well remembered over the long-term
• But there is evidence that information held in storage can be actively inhibited
• Part List Cuing, Retrieval Induced Forgetting, Directed Forgetting paradigms all suggest inhibition of stored memory traces is possible
• Thinking about stuff repeatedly will almost certainly make it more likely to be remembered, and actively not thinking about stuff may actually inhibit retrieval from storage (Practical Active and Passive Repression)