Emotional factors in memory

1
Emotional factors in memory

• Emotional input may affect memory in at least two
  ways
• Repression (motivated forgetting)
• Flashbulb memories
• The status of both these concepts is disputed.
  For each process
• What is involved?
• Evidence for
• Evidence against

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2
Repression
conscious

• Freudian idea that forgetting happens for a
  reason
• Thoughts memories that are painful are forced
  out of consciousness

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unconscious
3
Repression

• Extreme trauma
• E.g. child abuse, military combat
• Everyday forgetting
• E.g. dental appointments, tax return
• There are no mental accidents whatever you
  forget, you have chosen to forget it

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4
Repression

• Experimental evidence
• Levinger Clark (1961) found PPs had poorer
  recall of emotionally negative words (e.g.
  fight, fear)
• Klein (1972) found PPs had poorer recall for a
  wordlist when they had been insulted by the
  experimenter during learning
• Support the idea that repression of emotionally
  negative material occurs

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5
Repression

• Exptal findings have problems
• Replications of Levinger Clark have found
  recall for negative words higher after a delay
• Kleins PPs might have been distracted during
  learning or demotivated during recall

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6
Repression

• Case study evidence
• Event-specific amnesia e.g. criminals unable to
  recall committing crimes
• Post-traumatic amnesia e.g. disrupted recall of
  combat veterans
• Recovered memories e.g. of sexual abuse in
  childhood

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7
Repression

• Lots of clinical support, but
• Cannot eliminate deliberately feigned amnesia,
  influence of alcohol, drugs (criminal cases)
• In other cases, still difficult to distinguish
  unwillingness from inability to remember
• In many trauma cases, the problem is flashbacks,
  not forgetting

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8
Repression

• Recovered memory evidence has many problems
• Often impossible to validate claims due to lack
  of corroboration
• Possibility of iatrogenic false memories (see
  Loftus)

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9
Repression

• Evaluation
• Best evidence come from occasional compelling
  cases
• Experimental and much clinical evidence is weak
• Probably does happen, but not often Freuds
  suggestion that most forgetting is repression is
  not sustainable

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