Instruction to forget leads [corrected] to emotional devaluation

The aim of this study was to investigate if the interaction between emotion and memory is bidirectional. Specifically we tested if intentional forgetting of words and faces would lead to their subsequent emotional devaluation.

In three experiments we combined an item-method directed forgetting paradigm with an emotional evaluation task. In addition, to test the general response bias hypothesis, we manipulated the forget instruction so that participants would associate a positive encoding affect with this condition.

We found that intentionally forgotten words and faces were subsequently emotionally devaluated as compared with the to-be-remembered words and faces. Furthermore, this effect was replicated for words when we associated a positive instruction with the forget condition, which supports that the devaluation was memory specific.

These findings suggest that the Distractor Devaluation effect previously reported in the attention field can be generalized to memory. This is one the first studies to show an influence of memory processes, namely forgetting, on emotion.