ISSN 1671-3710
CN 11-4766/R
主办:中国科学院心理研究所
出版:科学出版社

›› 2010, Vol. 18 ›› Issue (6): 871-877.

Previous Articles     Next Articles

Intentional Forgetting of Emotional Memory

YANG Wen-Jing;ZHANG Qing-Lin;WU Ze-Lian;JIA Lei   

  1. School of psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China
  • Received:2009-11-02 Revised:1900-01-01 Online:2010-06-15 Published:2010-06-15
  • Contact: ZHANG Qing-Lin

Abstract: Intentional forgetting of emotional memories refers to the phenomenon that people attempt to actively put the unwanted memories which are emotionally disturbing out of awareness. Directed forgetting and suppression forgetting, two types of intentional forgetting, have triggered a bunch of studies so far. The item method and the list method are used to explore the mechanisms of directed forgetting, while the TNT task and the white bear task are mainly used to investigate suppression forgetting. In this article, we reviewed laboratory studies in this area, posing some important questions for the future studies, such as the interaction of different paradigms and cognitive systems, individual differences, the separation of emotional responses from the emotional events, and so on.

Key words: emotional memory, intentional forgetting, directed forgetting, suppression forgetting