Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

Emotional factors in forgetting.

B P Bradley1, A D Baddeley

  • 1Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge.

Psychological Medicine
|May 1, 1990
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Attention network functioning in children with anxiety disorders, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and non-clinical anxiety.

Psychological medicine·2015
Same author

Short-term Memory for Verbal and Visuospatial Information in Down's Syndrome.

Cognitive neuropsychiatry·2014
Same author

Sequential expression of biomarkers in Bluegill Sunfish exposed to contaminated sediment.

Ecotoxicology (London, England)·2013
Same author

Biased attention to threat in paediatric anxiety disorders (generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia, specific phobia, separation anxiety disorder) as a function of 'distress' versus 'fear' diagnostic categorization.

Psychological medicine·2013
Same author

Threat bias in attention orienting: evidence of specificity in a large community-based study.

Psychological medicine·2012
Same author

Obese adults have visual attention bias for food cue images: evidence for altered reward system function.

International journal of obesity (2005)·2009

Emotional material is initially harder to recall but becomes more memorable over time, challenging the repression hypothesis. This study examined memory for emotional versus neutral word associations.

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Psychology of Memory
  • Emotional Memory

Background:

  • Previous research (Levinger & Clarke, 1961) suggested emotional words impair memory recall.
  • Some studies (Kleinsmith & Kaplan, 1964) indicated delayed recall might reverse this effect.
  • The Freudian concept of repression has been invoked to explain memory biases for emotional stimuli.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To replicate findings on emotional word recall.
  • To investigate the effect of delayed recall on memory for emotional associations.
  • To test whether repression differentially affects pleasant versus unpleasant material.

Main Methods:

  • Replication of Levinger & Clark's (1961) study using balanced stimulus words.
  • Immediate and delayed (one month) recall testing for word associations.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Stimulus words were controlled for concreteness and word frequency.

    • Main Results:

    • Associations to emotional words were recalled less effectively immediately compared to neutral words.
    • Recall of associations to emotional material improved significantly after a one-month delay.
    • No significant differences were found in the recall of pleasant versus unpleasant material.

    Conclusions:

    • Findings do not support the repression hypothesis, as emotional material became more memorable over time.
    • The observed memory enhancement over time contradicts the idea of active, unconscious forgetting (repression).
    • The lack of difference between pleasant and unpleasant material recall further challenges repression theories.