Directed forgetting of unpleasant and neutral pictures? – An ERP study

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Directed forgetting of unpleasant and neutral pictures? – An ERP study Johanna Kissler1* and Anne Hauswald1 1 Department of Psychology, University of Konstany, Germany Using an item-cued directed forgetting paradigm, we examined directed forgetting for emotionally neutral and unpleasant complex colored pictures (mostly from the IAPS set). ERPs were recorded as subjects were presented with a random sequence of neutral and unpleasant pictures, each picture followed by a cue to either remember or forget this just presented picture. We analyzed ERPs during picture and cue (remember or forget) presentation, as well as recognition performance in an old-new remember/know task. Upon test, subjects had to decide whether a picture had been previously studied, and if so, whether they clearly remembered having seen the picture before (remember response) or whether they merely thought they had seen the picture before, but had no clear recollection of it (know response). For each picture, a thematically similar distractor was used. Behaviorally, directed forgetting as a reduced ability to recall pictures that were followed by a forget cue, emerged only for neutral, but not for unpleasant pictures and, in line with previous research, was restricted to `remember` responses. ERPs during picture presentation showed a larger parietal positivity when subjects were shown unpleasant than when they were shown neutral pictures, even before they were instructed whether to rehearse the item or not. Upon receiving the cue, a large frontal positivity emerged for pictures that should be forgotten. Although this positivity emerged for forget cues following both neutral and unpleasant pictures, its topography and amplitude varied. For neutral pictures followed by a forget cue, the effect was largest and most pronounced at fronto-central sites, whereas for unpleasant pictures it was most clearly seen at pre-frontal sites. Overall, the positivity was larger and more pro-tracted for neutral pictures. Together the data provide important insights into the dynamics of item-cued directed forgetting: The behavioral directed forgetting effect seems to depend both on the degree of initial maintenance rehearsal as reflected by the parietal positivity during item presentation and on selective inhibition as evidenced by a frontal positivity following the cue. As neutral pictures were apparently less well encoded during initial presentation and also subject to a more efficient selective inhibition, a directed forgetting effect emerged for these, but not for unpleasant pictures. tn_kissler kissler Conference: 10th International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience, Bodrum, Turkey, 1 Sep - 5 Sep, 2008. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Memory & Learning Citation: Kissler J and Hauswald A (2008). Directed forgetting of unpleasant and neutral pictures? – An ERP study. Conference Abstract: 10th International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience. doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.09.2009.01.288 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 09 Dec 2008; Published Online: 09 Dec 2008. * Correspondence: Johanna Kissler, Department of Psychology, University of Konstany, Konstanz, Germany, johanna.kissler@uni-bielefeld.de Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Johanna Kissler Anne Hauswald Google Johanna Kissler Anne Hauswald Google Scholar Johanna Kissler Anne Hauswald PubMed Johanna Kissler Anne Hauswald Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.