Reconsidering unconscious persistence: Suppressing unwanted memories reduces their indirect expression in later thoughts.
Conceptual representation
Implicit memory
Inhibition
Remote associates test (RAT)
Retrieval suppression
Think/no-think (TNT)
Journal
Cognition
ISSN: 1873-7838
Titre abrégé: Cognition
Pays: Netherlands
ID NLM: 0367541
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
06 2019
06 2019
Historique:
received:
24
12
2018
revised:
18
02
2019
accepted:
28
02
2019
pubmed:
11
3
2019
medline:
9
6
2020
entrez:
11
3
2019
Statut:
ppublish
Résumé
When we seek to forget unwelcome memories, does the suppressed content still exert an unconscious influence on our thoughts? Although intentionally stopping retrieval of a memory reduces later episodic retention for the suppressed trace, it remains unclear the extent to which suppressed content persists in indirectly influencing mental processes. Here we tested whether inhibitory control processes underlying retrieval suppression alter the influence of a memory's underlying semantic content on later thought. To achieve this, across two experiments, we tested whether suppressing episodic retrieval of to-be-excluded memories reduced the indirect expression of the unwanted content on an apparently unrelated test of problem solving: the remote associates test (RAT). Experiment 1 found that suppressed content was less likely than unsuppressed content to emerge as solutions to RAT problems. Indeed, suppression abolished evidence of conceptual priming, even when participants reported no awareness of the relationship between the memory and the problem solving tasks. Experiment 2 replicated this effect and also found that directing participants to use explicit memory to solve RAT problems eliminated suppression effects. Experiment 2 thus rules out the possibility that suppression effects reflect contamination by covert explicit retrieval strategies. Together, our results indicate that inhibitory control processes underlying retrieval suppression not only disrupt episodic retention, but also reduce the indirect influence of suppressed semantic content during unrelated thought processes. Considered with other recent demonstrations of implicit suppression effects, these findings indicate that historical assumptions about the persisting influence of suppressed thoughts on mental health require closer empirical scrutiny and need to be reconsidered.
Identifiants
pubmed: 30852261
pii: S0010-0277(19)30055-1
doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2019.02.016
pmc: PMC6446185
pii:
doi:
Types de publication
Journal Article
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Pagination
78-94Subventions
Organisme : Medical Research Council
ID : MC_UU_00005/1
Pays : United Kingdom
Organisme : Medical Research Council
ID : MC-A060-5PR00
Pays : United Kingdom
Informations de copyright
Copyright © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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