When can we choose to forget? An ERP study into item-method directed forgetting of emotional words

Emotionally arousing information is treated in a specialised manner across a number of different processing stages, and memory for affective events is often found to be heightened by virtue of this. However, in some cases, emotional experiences might be the very ones that we would like to forget. Here, two item-method directed forgetting studies are presented which investigate people's ability to intentionally forget affective words when stimuli and memory instructions are presented simultaneously. In the first experiment an interaction between task instruction and emotional content was evident in a diminished directed forgetting effect for emotional words, suggesting that they may be relatively resistant to deliberate forgetting. The interaction between instruction and emotion appeared both in free recall of words and in a yes-no recognition task. In the second study, an ERP procedure was utilised to investigate whether emotion modulates the effects of instruction during the initial encoding of stimuli. Recognition data again showed a clear interaction between instruction and emotion, with a reduced directed forgetting effect for emotional words. The ERP data demonstrated evidence for individual effects of both emotion and instruction during encoding; however, despite this, no evidence for an interaction between these factors was evident in the ERP data. As such, we conclude that even when study items are presented simultaneously with their associated memory instructions, neither does emotion prevent differential processing of directed forgetting instruction, nor does memory instruction prevent differential processing of emotion during early encoding. Implications are discussed in relation to the directed forgetting literature and more broadly with respect to circumstances under which emotion and cognitive processing work in parallel or in competition with each other.     

The moderating role of emotional differentiation on satiation

People tend to like experiences less the more they repeat them, a process commonly referred to as satiation. Despite an increasing interest in satiation among consumer researchers, we still know very little about the role that emotions play in the process. Through a series of three experiments, we show paradoxically that when individuals differentiate between the positive and negative emotions that arise during repeated consumption, they satiate at a slower rate. We show that a cognitive re‐appraisal process drives this emotional differentiation effect, whereby, when individuals focus on negative emotions they exhibit increased enjoyment of repeated consumption sequences. We demonstrate these effects for both trait and state emotional differentiation and across both continued and repeated consumption contexts. Theoretical implications of these findings for satiation, emotional differentiation, and emotion regulation literatures are then discussed.     

情绪一致性对有意遗忘的影响

有意遗忘是强调遗忘的有意性和指向性。对负性情绪的有意遗忘有利于个体的身心健康。本研究采用单字范式,实验一以正性、负性和中性情绪词为材料,探讨了情绪材料对有意遗忘的影响。结果发现,三类词语均表现出了显著的有意遗忘效应;实验二在实验一的基础上加入了情绪状态,探讨了情绪状态和情绪材料对有意遗忘的影响,结果发现,在积极情绪状态下,被试更多地遗忘负性情绪词;在消极情绪状态下,被试更多地遗忘中性词。表明个体对情绪信息的有意遗忘既受信息的情绪性影响,又受个体情绪状态的影响。     

Is Milkman a superhero like Batman? Constituent morphological priming in compound words

In the present study, we examined morphological decomposition of Basque compound words in a series of masked priming lexical decision experiments. In Experiment 1, Basque compound words could be briefly preceded by other compounds that shared either the first or second constituent, or by unrelated noncompound words. Results showed a significant priming effect for words that shared a constituent, independently of its position. In Experiment 2, compound words were preceded by other compound words that shared one of their constituents, but in a different lexeme position (e.g., the first constituent of the compound that acted as a prime was the second constituent of the compound that acted as a target). Results again showed a constituent priming effect (i.e., location in the string is not necessary for priming to occur). In Experiment 3, we demonstrated that these priming effects were not due to mere form overlap: pairs of noncompound words that shared either the beginning or the ending chunk did not produce a priming effect. Taken together, the present results converge with previous data on orthographic/morphological priming and provide evidence favouring early morphological decomposition.     

Retention beyond the threshold: Test-enhanced relearning of forgotten information

The effect of repeated testing on delayed relearning of paired associates was investigated. Participants learned two lists of Lithuanian-Dutch word pairs until reaching the criterion of one correct recall from long-term memory. In one condition, items subsequently received three post-retrieval study trials and in the other condition items received three post-retrieval test trials. Participants returned one week later for delayed recall and relearning. Post-retrieval test trials resulted in better delayed recall performance than post-retrieval study trials. Moreover, we found that the items that were repeatedly studied or tested one week prior to relearning were relearned faster than a new set of similar (not previously presented) items. Most importantly, items were relearned faster when they had previously been learned under conditions of post-retrieval testing than items learned under conditions of post-retrieval study. Taken together, the results indicate that the benefits of repeated testing are not just limited to conscious recall on a delayed test. Repeated testing during initial learning is also a very effective strategy to enhance delayed relearning.     

Context modulates hemispheric asymmetries in the resolution of lexical ambiguity

Previous studies have reported a hemispheric asymmetry in processing dominant (e.g., paper) and subordinate (e.g., farmer) associations of ambiguous words (e.g., pen). The majority of these studies, however, applied randomly ordered presentation and collected right-hand responses only. Generating responses solely with the right hand and the randomly ordered presentation of association type might have affected natural hemispheric expertise. We explored the putative relationships between responding hand and experimental design manipulations in processing lexical ambiguity. Ambiguous target words were laterally presented following word pairs that could be associated to the dominant or subordinate meaning of the target word. We manipulated the responding hand and the experimental context by presenting the semantic associations in a random (Experiment 1) and a blocked ordered presentation (Experiment 2). The results of Experiment 2 supported the right hemisphere expertise hypothesis, whereas the results of Experiment 1 can be best explained by the direct access model where stimuli are processed by the hemisphere receiving them first, without relying on hemispheric expertise. We conclude that without manipulating the responding hand, there is a risk of misinterpreting direct access results as evidence for hemispheric expertise. Moreover, we suggest that a blocked ordered presentation might encourage participants to use the expert hemisphere for the blocked factor. A new theoretical framework is presented to explain the findings.     

壮族大学生一位数字词的SNARC效应

本研究以壮族大学生为被试,要求他们对壮语、汉语听觉数字词(实验一)或汉语、英语视觉数字词(实验二)进行奇偶判断。结果发现：(1)壮族大学生对汉语、壮语听觉数字词以及汉语、英语视觉数字词都表现出了SNARC效应。(2)数字词在听觉条件下和视觉条件下产生的SNARC效应的强度相当。(3)书写习惯也影响到壮语听觉数字的SNARC效应的方向。     

The different representational frameworks underpinning abstract and concrete knowledge: Evidence from odd-one-out judgements

Recent evidence from neuropsychological investigations of individuals with global aphasia and deep or deep-phonological dyslexia suggests that abstract and concrete concepts are underpinned by qualitatively different representational frameworks. Abstract words are represented primarily by their association to other words, whilst concrete words are represented primarily by their taxonomic similarity to one another. In the current study, we present the first evidence for this association/similarity distinction to be gathered from healthy research participants. Using a semantic odd-one-out task, it is shown that normal participants identify associative connections more quickly than similarity-based connections when processing abstract words, but that the pattern is reversed for concrete words. It is also demonstrated that the typical concrete-word advantage observed in many cognitive tasks is abolished and even reversed when participants have to comprehend the semantic associations between words. The data provide converging evidence for the different representational frameworks hypothesis and suggest that claims based on information from previous neuropsychological investigations can be generalized to normal cognition.     

Parafoveal processing within and between words

Parafoveal preview was examined within and between words in two eye movement experiments. In Experiment 1, unspaced and spaced English compound words were used (e.g., basketball, tennis ball). Prior to fixating the second lexeme, either a correct or a partial parafoveal preview (e.g., ball or badk) was provided using the boundary paradigm (Rayner, 1975). There was a larger effect of parafoveal preview on unspaced compound words than on spaced compound words. However, the parafoveal preview effect on spaced compound words was larger than would be predicted on the basis of prior research. Experiment 2 examined whether this large effect was due to spaced compounds forming a larger linguistic unit by pairing spaced compounds with nonlexicalized adjective–noun pairs. There were no significant interactions between item type and parafoveal preview, suggesting that it is the syntactic predictability of the noun that is driving the large preview effect.     

平衡蒙汉双语者词汇与物理位置空间信息的语义表征

采用空间词不对称判断与Simon任务混合范式考察平衡蒙汉双语者词汇与物理位置空间信息的语义表征特点。实验一以平衡蒙汉双语者为被试,发现Simon效应所受影响在蒙汉语言间无差异。实验二以蒙-汉-英三语者为被试,发现Simon效应所受影响在汉语英语间、蒙语英语间有差异。本研究表明,平衡双语者词汇空间信息与物理位置空间信息存在共享语义表征,语言熟练程度影响一语和二语与共享表征的联结强度,验证了修正层级模型。