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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 27, 2026

Reducing State Anxiety Using Working Memory Maintenance

Reducing State Anxiety Using Working Memory Maintenance

Published on: July 19, 2017

Sensitive maintenance: a cognitive process underlying individual differences in memory for threatening information.

Jan H Peters¹, Michael Hock, Heinz Walter Krohne

¹Department of Psychology, University of Bamberg, University of Bamberg, Bamberg, Germany. jan-hendrik.peters@uni-bamberg.de

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

|November 16, 2011

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Individuals coping with threat, known as sensitizers, better remember threatening information over time than repressors. This memory advantage for sensitizers disappears under high cognitive load.

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Investigating the Neural Mechanisms of Aware and Unaware Fear Memory with fMRI

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Published on: October 6, 2011

Area of Science:

Cognitive Psychology
Memory Research
Threat Perception

Background:

Individual differences in coping styles, specifically sensitizers and repressors, impact memory for threatening stimuli.
Previous research indicates sensitizers outperform repressors in long-term memory for threat, but not short-term.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the role of active maintenance in memory for threatening information.
To examine how cognitive load affects memory retention in sensitizers versus repressors.

Main Methods:

Two experiments exposed participants to threatening and non-threatening pictures or words.
Recognition tests were administered before and after a cognitive load manipulation (high or low).
Participants were categorized as sensitizers or repressors based on their coping styles.

Main Results:

Under low cognitive load, sensitizers demonstrated significantly less forgetting of threatening material compared to repressors.
Under high cognitive load, this difference in memory retention between sensitizers and repressors was eliminated.
These findings were consistent across both experiments using visual and verbal stimuli.

Conclusions:

Sensitizers appear to use active maintenance strategies to preserve threatening memories, particularly when cognitive resources are not depleted.
Cognitive load interferes with sensitizers' memory maintenance processes, negating their advantage over repressors.
Understanding these mechanisms offers insight into threat memory and individual differences in emotional regulation.