Forgetting to forget: On the duration of voluntary suppression of neutral and emotional memories

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

Can we control the content of our memory and forget what we do not want to think about by an act of
will? If so, is forgetting temporary or permanent, and is it independent of the nature of what we wish to
forget? Using Anderson and Green’s (2001) ‘‘think/no-think” paradigm with neutral and emotional
nouns, we found in agreement with other studies that memory for neutral words was reduced instantly
upon repeated attempts at suppression. However, the effect was temporary and vanished after a period of
one week, which strongly suggests that intended memory suppression interferes with immediate retrieval
but does not lead to long-term forgetting. Furthermore, the amount of training that clearly reduced
immediate recall of neutral items did not at all reduce recall of emotional items. This finding is in accordance
with the notion that emotional items have a higher degree of salience and tend to attract more
attention than neutral items.
Original languageEnglish
JournalActa Psychologica
Volume133
Pages (from-to)73-80
Number of pages8
ISSN0001-6918
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2010

ID: 17087476