Abstract
Earlier studies have shown that when individuals recall an emotional memory while simultaneously doing a demanding dual-task [e.g., playing Tetris, mental arithmetic, making eye movements (EM)], this reduces self-reported vividness and emotionality of the memory. These effects have been found up to 1 week later, but have largely been confined to self-report ratings. This study examined whether this dual-tasking intervention reduces memory performance (i.e., accessibility of emotional memories). Undergraduates (N = 60) studied word-image pairs and rated the retrieved image on vividness and emotionality when cued with the word. Then they viewed the cues and recalled the images with or without making EM. Finally, they re-rated the images on vividness and emotionality. Additionally, fragments from images from all conditions were presented and participants identified which fragment was paired earlier with which cue. Findings showed no effect of the dual-task manipulation on self-reported ratings and latency responses. Several possible explanations for the lack of effects are discussed, but the cued recall procedure in our experiment seems to explain the absence of effects best. The study demonstrates boundaries to the effects of the “dual-tasking” procedure.
Highlights
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is an evidence-based treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder [1,2,3]
MANIPULATION CHECKS An analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that there were no differences between conditions on difficulty of retrieval, F [2, 118] = 1.56, p = 0.21, η2p = 0.03, indicating comparable levels of recall before entering the eye movements (EM) phase
In this extended replication of Van den Hout et al [18], we found no blurring of the emotional memory representations for recall + EM compared to recall only or no intervention
Summary
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is an evidence-based treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder [1,2,3]. In EMDR, patients are asked to recall traumatic memories while they simultaneously make eye movements (EM). A recent meta-analysis of clinical and laboratory studies on the role of EM has shown that EM during recall of negative memories do have additional effects [8]. For laboratory studies, this additive effect is evident by larger reductions in subjective vividness and emotionality ratings of the distressing memory for recall + EM conditions, compared to a control condition in which participants merely recall the memory (i.e., recall only). There are some findings of EM effects on Subjective Units of Distress combined with symptom measures, such as the Impact of Events Scale [see Ref. [8]]
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