Abstract
Intrusive memories of a traumatic event can be reduced by a subsequent interference procedure, seemingly sparing voluntary memory for that event. This selective-interference effect has potential therapeutic benefits (e.g., for emotional disorders) and legal importance (e.g., for witness testimony). However, the measurements of intrusive memory and voluntary memory typically differ in the role of associations between a cue and the emotional memory “hotspots.” To test this, we asked participants to watch a traumatic film followed by either an interference procedure (reminder plus Tetris) or control procedure (reminder only). Measurement of intrusions (using a laboratory task) and voluntary memory (recognition for film stills) were crossed with the presence or absence of associative cues. The reminder-plus-Tetris group exhibited fewer intrusions despite comparable recognition memory, replicating the results of prior studies. Note that this selective interference did not appear to depend on associative cues. This involuntary versus voluntary memory dissociation for emotional material further supports separate-trace memory theories and has applied advantages.
Highlights
If similar disruption were found on both involuntary and voluntary memory measures when including an associative component, this would support the hypothesis that reminder plus Tetris interferes with associations between elements of a memory, which would be more consistent with single-trace accounts
We set out to test whether intrusive memories can be reduced while sparing voluntary memory—a selectiveinterference effect (Lau-Zhu et al, 2019)—or whether the apparent dissociation reflects differences in how the memories are measured
We hypothesized that there was a difference in the associative component of the measures in that measures of intrusive memories more readily probe associations between a trigger cue (e.g., “a picture of a boy playing football”) and a target hotspot memory than do typical measures of voluntary memory, which have tended to rely on recognition memory for individual elements of an event
Summary
The first aim was to attempt to replicate the interference effect (after viewing a trauma film) of the reminderplus-Tetris procedure on subsequent intrusions of the film, as assessed in a vigilance-intrusion task embedded with trauma-film cues (on same day, i.e., Day 1, as in Lau-Zhu et al, 2019, Experiments 2 and 3), as well as on diary intrusions of the film over the subsequent week (Holmes et al, 2009; Lau-Zhu et al, 2019). The second and critical aim was to see whether similar a pattern of disruption could be found on a voluntary recognition-memory task in which the target scenes (requiring a yes/no response) were preceded by cues either from the trauma film or a different/ unseen film. If similar disruption were found on both involuntary and voluntary memory measures when including an associative component (i.e., with traumafilm cues), this would support the hypothesis that reminder plus Tetris interferes with associations between elements of a memory, which would be more consistent with single-trace accounts. If interference were found only on an involuntary memory measure (e.g., in a vigilance-intrusion task) and not on the voluntary memory measure (recognition task), this would strengthen prior claims that separate memory systems underlie voluntary and involuntary (intrusive) memories
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