Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

The present study investigated the extent to which people can suppress unwanted autobiographical memories in a memory-detection context involving a mock crime. Participants encoded sensorimotor-rich memories by enacting a lab-based crime (stealing a ring) and received instructions to suppress memory of the crime in order to evade guilt detection in a brain-wave-based concealed-information test. Aftereffects of suppression on automatic memory processes were measured in an autobiographical Implicit Association Test. Results showed that suppression attenuated brain-wave activity (the P300) associated with crime-relevant memory retrieval, which rendered waveforms from innocent and guilty participants indistinguishable. However, the two groups could nevertheless be discriminated via the late-posterior-negative slow wave, which may reflect the need to monitor response conflict arising between voluntary suppression and automatic recognition processes. Finally, extending recent findings that suppression can impair implicit memory processes, we provide novel evidence that suppression reduces automatic cognitive biases often associated with actual autobiographical memories.

Keywords

memory suppression memory detection autobiographical memory P300 autobiographical Implicit Association Test neuroscience and law open data open materials

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Agosta

Sartori

(2013). The autobiographical IAT: A review. Frontiers in Psychology, 4, Article 519. Retrieved from http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00519/full

Anderson

M. C.

Green

(2001). Suppressing unwanted memories by executive control. Nature, 410, 366–369. doi:10.1038/35066572

Anderson

M. C.

Hanslmayr

(2014). Neural mechanisms of motivated forgetting. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 18, 279–292. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2014.03.002

Anderson

M. C.

Ochsner

K. N.

Kuhl

Cooper

Robertson

Gabrieli

S. W.

. . . Gabrieli

J. D.

(2004). Neural systems underlying the suppression of unwanted memories. Science, 303, 232–235. doi:10.1126/science.1089504

Benoit

R. G.

Anderson

M. C.

(2012). Opposing mechanisms support the voluntary forgetting of unwanted memories. Neuron, 76, 450–460. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2012.07.025

Benoit

R. G.

Hulbert

J. C.

Huddleston

Anderson

M. C.

(2015). Adaptive top–down suppression of hippocampal activity and the purging of intrusive memories from consciousness. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 27, 96–111. doi:10.1162/jocn_a_00696

Bergström

Z. M.

Anderson

M. C.

Buda

Simons

J. S.

Richardson-Klavehn

(2013). Intentional retrieval suppression can conceal guilty knowledge in ERP memory detection tests. Biological Psychology, 94, 1–11. doi:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2013.04.012

Bergström

Z. M.

de Fockert

J. W.

Richardson-Klavehn

(2009). ERP and behavioural evidence for direct suppression of unwanted memories. NeuroImage, 48, 726–737. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.06.051

Cabeza

St Jacques

(2007). Functional neuroimaging of autobiographical memory. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 11, 219–227. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2007.02.005

10.

Depue

B. E.

(2012). A neuroanatomical model of prefrontal inhibitory modulation of memory retrieval. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 36, 1382–1399. doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2012.02.012

11.

Depue

B. E.

Ketz

Mollison

M. V.

Nyhus

Banich

M. T.

Curran

(2013). ERPs and neural oscillations during volitional suppression of memory retrieval. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 25, 1624–1633. doi:10.1162/jocn_a_00418

12.

Farah

M. J.

Hutchinson

J. B.

Phelps

E. A.

Wagner

A. D.

(2014). Functional MRI-based lie detection: Scientific and societal challenges. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 15, 123–131. doi:10.1038/Nrn3665

13.

Gagnepain

Henson

R. N.

Anderson

M. C.

(2014). Suppressing unwanted memories reduces their unconscious influence via targeted cortical inhibition. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 111, E1310–E1319. doi:10.1073/pnas.1311468111

14.

Greenwald

A. G.

Nosek

B. A.

Banaji

M. R.

(2003). Understanding and using the Implicit Association Test: I. An improved scoring algorithm. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 197–216. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.85.2.197

15.

Pornpattananangkul

Rosenfeld

J. P.

(2013). N200 and P300 as orthogonal and integrable indicators of distinct awareness and recognition processes in memory detection. Psychophysiology, 50, 454–464. doi:10.1111/psyp.12018

16.

Rosenfeld

J. P.

(2012). Combining the P300-complex trial-based concealed information test and the reaction time-based autobiographical Implicit Association Test in concealed memory detection. Psychophysiology, 49, 1090–1100. doi:10.1111/j.1469-8986.2012.01389.x

17.

Rosenfeld

J. P.

Bodenhausen

G. V.

(2012). Combating automatic autobiographical associations: The effect of instruction and training in strategically concealing information in the autobiographical Implicit Association Test. Psychological Science, 23, 1079–1085. doi:10.1177/0956797612443834

18.

Johansson

Mecklinger

(2003). The late posterior negativity in ERP studies of episodic memory: Action monitoring and retrieval of attribute conjunctions. Biological Psychology, 64, 91–117. doi:10.1016/s0301-0511(03)00104-2

19.

Kim

D. J.

(2013). Out of mind, out of sight: Perceptual consequences of memory suppression. Psychological Science, 24, 569–574. doi:10.1177/0956797612457577

20.

Levy

B. J.

Anderson

M. C.

(2012). Purging of memories from conscious awareness tracked in the human brain. The Journal of Neuroscience, 32, 16785–16794. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2640-12.2012

21.

Loftus

G. R.

Masson

M. E.

(1994). Using confidence intervals in within-subject designs. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 1, 476–490. doi:10.3758/BF03210951

22.

Meijer

E. H.

Selle

N. K.

Elber

Ben-Shakhar

(2014). Memory detection with the Concealed Information Test: A meta analysis of skin conductance, respiration, heart rate, and P300 data. Psychophysiology, 51, 879–904. doi:10.1111/psyp.12239

23.

Noreen

MacLeod

M. D.

(2013). It’s all in the detail: Intentional forgetting of autobiographical memories using the autobiographical think/no-think task. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 39, 375–393. doi:10.1037/a0028888

24.

Paller

K. A.

Kutas

McIsaac

H. K.

(1995). Monitoring conscious recollection via the electrical activity of the brain. Psychological Science, 6, 107–111. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.1995.tb00315.x

25.

Rosenfeld

J. P.

Labkovsky

Meixner

Winograd

M. R.

(2013). Review of recent studies and issues regarding the P300-based complex trial protocol for detection of concealed information. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 90, 118–134. doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2013.08.012

26.

Rouder

J. N.

Speckman

P. L.

Sun

Morey

R. D.

Iverson

(2009). Bayesian t tests for accepting and rejecting the null hypothesis. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 16, 225–237. doi:10.3758/PBR.16.2.225

27.

Rugg

M. D.

Curran

(2007). Event-related potentials and recognition memory. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 11, 251–257. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2007.04.004

28.

Rugg

M. D.

Schloerscheidt

A. M.

Doyle

M. C.

Cox

C. J.

Patching

G. R.

(1996). Event-related potentials and the recollection of associative information. Cognitive Brain Research, 4, 297–304. doi:10.1016/S0926-6410(96)00067-5

29.

Schacter

D. L.

(1987). Implicit memory: History and current status. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 13, 501–518. doi:10.1037//0278-7393.13.3.501

30.

Soskins

Rosenfeld

J. P.

Niendam

(2001). Peak-to-peak measurement of P300 recorded at 0.3 Hz high pass filter settings in intraindividual diagnosis: Complex vs. simple paradigms. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 40, 173–180. doi:10.1016/s0167-8760(00)00154-9

31.

Vilberg

K. L.

Moosavi

R. F.

Rugg

M. D.

(2006). The relationship between electrophysiological correlates of recollection and amount of information retrieved. Brain Research, 1122, 161–170. doi:10.1016/j.brainres.2006.09.023

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.01 MB

0.13 MB

0.09 MB

Suppressing Unwanted Autobiographical Memories Reduces Their Automatic Influences

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References

Supplementary Material