Bergström Zara M, de Fockert Jan, Richardson-Klavehn Alan
Goldsmiths, University of London, UK.
J Cogn Neurosci. 2009 Jul;21(7):1280-301. doi: 10.1162/jocn.2009.21075.
Voluntary control processes can be recruited to facilitate recollection in situations where a retrieval cue fails to automatically bring to mind a desired episodic memory. We investigated whether voluntary control processes can also stop recollection of unwanted memories that would otherwise have been automatically recollected. Participants were trained on cue-associate word-pairs, then repeatedly presented with the cue and asked to either recollect or avoid recollecting the associate, while having the event-related potential (ERP) correlate of conscious recollection measured. Halfway through the phase, some cues switched instructions so that participants had to start avoiding recall of associates they had previously repeatedly recalled, and vice versa. ERPs during recollection avoidance showed a significantly reduced positivity in the correlate of conscious recollection, and switching instructions reversed the ERP effect even for items that had been previously repeatedly recalled, suggesting that voluntary control processes can override highly practiced, automatic recollection. Avoiding recollection of particularly prepotent memories was associated with an additional, earlier ERP negativity that was separable from the later voluntary modulation of conscious recollection. The findings have implications for theories of memory retrieval by highlighting the involvement of voluntary attentional processes in controlling conscious recollection.
在检索线索未能自动唤起所需情景记忆的情况下，可以运用自主控制过程来促进回忆。我们研究了自主控制过程是否也能阻止对原本会自动回忆起来的 unwanted 记忆的回忆。参与者接受了线索关联词对的训练，然后反复呈现线索，并要求他们回忆或避免回忆关联词，同时测量与有意识回忆相关的事件相关电位（ERP）。在这个阶段进行到一半时，一些线索改变了指令，以便参与者不得不开始避免回忆他们之前反复回忆过的关联词，反之亦然。在避免回忆期间的ERP显示，有意识回忆相关的正性成分显著降低，并且改变指令即使对于之前反复回忆过的项目也能逆转ERP效应，这表明自主控制过程可以超越高度熟练的自动回忆。避免回忆特别突出的记忆与一个额外的、更早出现的ERP负性成分相关，该负性成分与后来对有意识回忆的自主调节是可分离的。这些发现通过强调自主注意过程在控制有意识回忆中的作用，对记忆检索理论具有启示意义。
