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Updated: Aug 31, 2026

Brain Imaging Investigation of the Neural Correlates of Emotional Autobiographical Recollection
Published on: August 26, 2011
Consequences of specific processing of emotional information: Impact of general versus specific autobiographical
Pierre Philippot1, Alexandre Schaefer, Gwenola Herbette
1Faculté de Psychologie, Université de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. pierre.philippot@psp.ucl.ac.be
Abstract:
The relation between emotion intensity and the voluntary activation of personal memories was investigated in 2 experiments. Two hypotheses were compared: the specificity hypothesis, which states that emotion intensity is positively related to the specificity of personal memories, and the strategic inhibition hypothesis, which postulates that specifying past experiences requires the inhibition of emotion. Study 1 showed that priming a specific (vs. overgeneral) access mode to autobiographical memory results in less emotion during a subsequent mental imagery trial. Study 2 replicated Study 1 with a wider array of emotions and a different method of emotion induction (films). Overall, results support the strategic inhibition hypothesis. The notion of specificity is discussed as well as implications for cognitive theories of emotion and their clinical applications.
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