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Forgetting emotional material in working memory.

Eda Mizrak1,2, Henrik Singmann3, Ilke Öztekin1

  • 1Department of Psychology, Koç University, Istanbul 3310, Turkey.

Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
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PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Earlier learning can hinder new memory formation, a phenomenon called proactive interference (PI). This study shows emotional memories are less affected by PI than neutral ones, impacting brain activity in memory-related regions.

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Psychology
  • Neuroimaging

Background:

  • Proactive interference (PI) occurs when prior learning impedes new memory formation.
  • PI increases with repeated exposure to similar stimuli, reducing item discriminability.
  • The impact of PI on memory and its neural correlates, especially for emotional vs. neutral stimuli, requires further investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate how proactive interference affects memory performance for emotional and neutral stimuli.
  • To examine the neural mechanisms underlying proactive interference using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
  • To model the cognitive processes affected by PI using a hierarchical diffusion model.

Main Methods:

  • Participants performed a 5-item probe recognition task with induced proactive interference.
  • Stimuli were categorized as either emotional (e.g., disgust) or neutral (e.g., furniture).
  • Brain activity was measured using fMRI, and behavioral data were analyzed with a hierarchical diffusion model.

Main Results:

  • Proactive interference similarly reduced cognitive processing efficiency (drift rate) for both emotional and neutral stimuli.
  • However, the negative impact of PI on drift rate was less pronounced for emotional stimuli compared to neutral stimuli.
  • Increased activation in parahippocampal regions correlated with declining drift rate, particularly for neutral stimuli.

Conclusions:

  • Emotional stimuli may be more resilient to the memory-disrupting effects of proactive interference.
  • Parahippocampal activity is modulated by proactive interference, with a stronger link observed for neutral information.
  • These findings shed light on the differential impact of emotional content on memory interference and its neural underpinnings.