Inducing forgetting of unwanted memories through subliminal reactivation

Abstract

Processes that might facilitate the forgetting of unwanted experiences typically require the actual or imagined re-exposure to reminders of the event, which is aversive and carries risks to people. But it is unclear whether awareness of aversive content is necessary for effective voluntary forgetting. Disrupting hippocampal function through retrieval suppression induces an amnesic shadow that impairs the encoding and stabilization of unrelated memories that are activated near in time to people’s effort to suppress retrieval. Building on this mechanism, here we successfully disrupt retention of unpleasant memories by subliminally reactivating them within this amnesic shadow. Critically, whereas unconscious forgetting occurs on these affective memories, the amnesic shadow itself is induced by conscious suppression of unrelated and benign neutral memories, avoiding conscious re-exposure of unwelcome content. Combining the amnesic shadow with subliminal reactivation may offer a new approach to voluntary forgetting that bypasses the unpleasantness in conscious exposure to unwanted memories.