Remembering Can Cause Forgetting – but Not in

Negative MoodsPsychological Science – 2007

Karl-Heinz Bauml and Christof KuhbandnerPresented byTachelle Nettles

Fall 2010

Article Definitions

Affective states – positive or negative emotions/moods

Retrieval induced forgetting – forgetting that is caused by the retrieval process itself

Item-specific processing–processing events by their details

Relational processing –processing events in relation to other concepts in memory

Background

Goal: To investigate how affective states might influence retrieval-induced forgetting

Question: Does the affective state experienced during retrieval influence forgetting independent of the contents to be retrieved?

Prior Findings

“Repeated retrieval of a subset of previously observed events can cause later forgetting of non-retrieved events”

Emotions can influence how info is processed◦Positive emotions result in relational-processing

◦Negative emotions result in item-specific processing

Assumptions

Mood may affect retrieval-induced forgetting

During retrieval of to-be-practiced items only related items should interfere and be inhibited to reduce interference

Positive and negative moods may have opposing effects on retrieval-induced forgetting: enhancing in one case and reducing in the other

Summary of Study

Volunteers asked to study episodic material Immediately before retrieval a mood was

induced and then volunteers were asked to retrieve a subset of the material

Researchers examined whether mood affected later recall of the nonretrieved material.

Subjects

27 Students at Regensburg University, Germany tested individually

Materials

6 Word Lists◦Each contained items from 3 semantic

categories◦6 emotionally neutral words◦Initial letter of each word was unique

10 Positive, 10 Negative, 10 Neutral pictures◦People with diseases and mutilated bodies

(negative)◦Erotic Scenes and babies (positive)◦Scenery and objects (neutral)

Design (1 of 3)

3 x 3 design – mood and word type

Practiced (P+) Unpracticed (P-) Control (C)

Positive

Negative

Neutral

Negative

• Word list: (4 Phases)• Word list: (4 Phases)

Positive

• Word list: (4 Phases)• Word list: (4 Phases)

Neutral

• Word list: (4 Phases)• Word list: (4 Phases)

Design Continued (2 of 3)

For each single list the experiment consisted of 4 main phases◦Study Phase◦Mood-Induction Phase◦Retrieval-Practice Phase◦Final Test Phase

For each of the 6 lists in the, subjects attempted to retrieve half of the items from 2 of 3 categories

Design Continued (3 of 3)

3 types of words created◦Retrieval practiced (P+ words)◦Unpracticed words belonging to same 2 categories as P+ words (P- words)

◦Unpracticed words from unpracticed category, serves as control words (C words)

Fruit (P+)• Apple• Orange

Fruit (P-)• Banana• Plum

Drinks (C)• Vodka• Rum

Procedure (1 of 2)

Study Phase◦Each word on list displayed on computer screen for 5s with category name

◦Random sequence of 6 blocks◦30-s distracter task before next phase

Mood-Induction Phase◦Subjects successively shown 5 pictures of the same valence and told to let it influence their emotional state (6-secs each)

Procedure Continued (2 of 2)

Retrieval-Practice Phase◦Word stem of P+ presented with category name

and asked to complete with a studied word◦Presented twice at 2.5 s per stem◦Mood measured ◦3-min distracter

Final Test Phase◦Subjects given 1st letter of studied word with

category and asked to name appropriate word Fruit: A____

◦30 sec break between study phase of next list

Results

Manipulation CheckRetrieval-Practice Phase

Final Recall Test

Manipulation Check Results

Across conditions, subjects varied reliably in mood

Arousal between positive and neutral conditions differed reliably from arousal in negative condition

Retrieval-Practice Phase Results

PositiveNegative

Neutral

74

76

78

80

82

84

86 85.2

82.3

79

Mean

% o

f P

+ W

ord

s

Retrieval success in retrieval-practice phase was high and did not vary reliably across mood conditions

Final Recall Test Results

Retrieval practice enhanced later recall of P+ words

In positive and neutral mood conditions performance was lower for the P- words than the C words

In the negative mood condition recall of P- words was slightly higher than recall of C words

Amount of forgetting differed reliably between the positive and negative mood conditions

Final Recall Test Results

Discussion

Affect can influence retrieval-induced forgetting

When negative affect was experienced in retrieval-practice phase it did not cause forgetting of non-retrieved words from practice category

Reliable forgetting found in subjects who experienced positive and neutral moods

Results consistent with recent findings indicating that negative emotions induce predominately item-specific processing

Discussion Continued

Results show a tendency for more forgetting in the positive-mood than in the neutral-mood condition (not significant difference)

Results primarily demonstrate the influence of negative moods on retrieval-induced forgetting, indicating that a change from the (default) relational mode to an item-specific mode of retrieval can eliminate the forgetting.

Results suggest that mood may influence eyewitness testimony.

Questions?

Thoughts?

Questions?

Article Citation

Kuhbandner, C. (2007). Remembering Can Cause Forgetting-but Not in Negative Moods. Psychological Science, 18(2), 111-115.