Freud may have been right: people can suppress memories.
Michael Anderson and Collin Green of the University of Oregon in Eugene asked 32 people to memorise a list of 50 or so simple pairs of words, such as 鈥渙rdeal鈥� and 鈥渞oach鈥�.
The volunteers were then presented with the first word and asked either to recall the second or banish it from their minds for four seconds. Volunteers were asked to suppress the second word between zero and 16 times.
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The researchers found that volunteers were much less able to recall words that had been repressed many times 鈥� even when they were offered money to remember. 鈥淚鈥檓 not making the claim that you鈥檙e forgetting the memory,鈥� says Anderson. 鈥淚t鈥檚 inhibited, not erased.鈥�
Anderson accepts that word pairs don鈥檛 have the emotional content of many suppressed memories. But says the experiment provides a proof of principle, that people can influence the content of their memories. 鈥淭here must exist a collection of executive control functions,鈥� he says.
Martin Conway at the University of Bristol agrees that the finding is important: 鈥淭heir methods offer a way of exploring the underlying mechanisms, and may ultimately shed light on how repression comes about.鈥�
Conway is interested in taking the experiment forward and doing brain imaging to uncover where the inhibition is taking place.
Anderson points out that memory inhibition happens in everyday life 鈥� it may be counterproductive to remember yesterday鈥檚 parking spot 鈥� or the name of last year鈥檚 lover.
His interest was sparked by earlier findings that victims of childhood abuse are more likely to repress memories if the abuser was a trusted caregiver rather than a stranger.
杏吧原创s reckoned that the known abuser was providing a constant memory cue, so the victim may have had to actively suppress the memory in order to go forward with life.
More at: Nature (vol 410, p 366)