Recollecting positive and negative autobiographical memories disrupts working memory
Section snippets
Experiment 1
This experiment examined performance on a Corsi spatial WM task, immediately after retrieval of a neutral or negatively valenced ABM. Physical and computerized variants of this task have been frequently used to assess spatial WM processing and capacity (e.g. Burke et al., 2012, Talarico et al., 2004), with studies suggesting a dissociation from verbal (Vandierendonck, Kemps, Fastame, & Szmalec, 2004) and visual WM (Della Sala, Gray, Baddeley, Allamano, & Wilson, 1999) and a role for executive
Experiment 2
It remains unclear whether the impacts of the induction technique observed in Experiment 1 were executive in nature, or more specifically visuospatial. For example, valenced ABM recollection may have elicited more associated mental imagery, which in turn influenced visuospatial WM. The first aim of this experiment therefore was to extend our exploration to a different modality. Under our approach, each participant performed a verbal WM task immediately following each of the ABM retrieval
General discussion
Two experiments revealed that recollection of emotionally valenced ABMs can significantly disrupt subsequent working memory performance. Effects of negative memory recollection were apparent in both spatial (Experiment 1) and verbal (Experiment 2) working memories, with positive recollection also showing similar impacts on verbal recall in the second experiment. In addition, effects of recollection were most apparent in early trials, before reducing later in the trial blocks. However, this
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank Saadia Choudray for her help with data collection. A.S. was supported by the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) (BB/H001476) at the time of this research.
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