Intrusive memories and voluntary memory of a trauma film: Differential effects of a cognitive interference task after encoding.

ABSTRACT: Methods to reduce intrusive memories (e.g., of traumatic events) should ideally spare voluntary memory for the same event (e.g., to report on the event in court). Single-trace memory accounts assume that interfering with a trace should impact both its involuntary and voluntary expressions, whereas separate-trace accounts assume these two can dissociate, allowing for selective interference. This possibility was investigated in 3 experiments. Nonclinical participants viewed a trauma film followed by an interference task (Tetris game-play after reminder cues). Next, memory for the film was assessed with various measures. The interference task reduced the number of intrusive memories (diary-based, Experiments 1 and 2), but spared performance on well-matched measures of voluntary retriev

SUBMITTER: Lau-Zhu A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7116494 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature