Examining the impact of thought substitution on intentional forgetting in induced and naturally occurring dysphoria

TY - JOUR

T1 - Examining the impact of thought substitution on intentional forgetting in induced and naturally occurring dysphoria

AU - Noreen, Saima

AU - Ridout, Nathan

N1 - © 2016, Elsevier. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

PY - 2016/7/30

Y1 - 2016/7/30

N2 - Two experiments were conducted to determine if natural and induced dysphoria is associated with impaired forgetting and, whether a thought-substitution strategy would ameliorate any observed deficits. Study 1: 36 dysphoric & 36 non-dysphoric participants learnt a series of emotional word pairs. Participants were subsequently presented with some of the cues and were asked to recall the targets or prevent the targets from coming to mind. Half of the participants were provided with substitute words to recall instead of the original targets (aided suppression). At final memory testing, participants were asked to recall the targets to all cues. Dysphoric participants exhibited impaired forgetting, even when using a thought substitution strategy. Non-dysphoric participants, however, were able to use substitutes to suppress words. Study 2: 50 healthy participants initially completed the aided condition of the forgetting task. Participants were then given a positive or negative mood-induction, followed by another version of the forgetting task. Although all participants showed a forgetting effect prior to the mood-induction, only the positive group was successful at forgetting after the mood induction. Taken together, these findings do not support the utility of thought-substitution as an aid to forgetting in individuals in a naturally or induced dysphoric mood.

AB - Two experiments were conducted to determine if natural and induced dysphoria is associated with impaired forgetting and, whether a thought-substitution strategy would ameliorate any observed deficits. Study 1: 36 dysphoric & 36 non-dysphoric participants learnt a series of emotional word pairs. Participants were subsequently presented with some of the cues and were asked to recall the targets or prevent the targets from coming to mind. Half of the participants were provided with substitute words to recall instead of the original targets (aided suppression). At final memory testing, participants were asked to recall the targets to all cues. Dysphoric participants exhibited impaired forgetting, even when using a thought substitution strategy. Non-dysphoric participants, however, were able to use substitutes to suppress words. Study 2: 50 healthy participants initially completed the aided condition of the forgetting task. Participants were then given a positive or negative mood-induction, followed by another version of the forgetting task. Although all participants showed a forgetting effect prior to the mood-induction, only the positive group was successful at forgetting after the mood induction. Taken together, these findings do not support the utility of thought-substitution as an aid to forgetting in individuals in a naturally or induced dysphoric mood.

KW - dysphoria

KW - induced mood

KW - intentional forgetting

KW - think/no-think

KW - thought substitution

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84968732915&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.psychres.2016.04.086

DO - 10.1016/j.psychres.2016.04.086

M3 - Article

VL - 241

SP - 280

EP - 288

JO - Psychiatry Research

JF - Psychiatry Research

SN - 0165-1781

ER -