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 www.psychlotron.org.uk

2. Repression conscious • Freudian idea that forgetting happens for a reason • Thoughts & memories that are painful are forced out of consciousness www.psychlotron.org.uk 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 www.psychlotron.org.uk

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 www.psychlotron.org.uk

5. Repression • Exp’tal findings have problems: • Replications of Levinger & Clark have found recall for negative words higher after a delay • Klein’s PPs might have been distracted during learning or demotivated during recall www.psychlotron.org.uk

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 www.psychlotron.org.uk

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 www.psychlotron.org.uk

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) www.psychlotron.org.uk

9. Repression • Evaluation • Best evidence come from occasional compelling cases • Experimental and much clinical evidence is weak • Probably does happen, but not often; Freud’s suggestion that most forgetting is repression is not sustainable www.psychlotron.org.uk