执行控制资源损耗对自传体记忆生动性和情绪的影响

Reducing the Vividness and Emotional Impact of Autobiographical Memories: The Importance of Self-Regulation Depletion

旨在探究健康个体执行控制资源损耗对自传体记忆生动性及情绪的影响。实验一采用Stroop任务探讨了一般执行控制资源损耗的影响,结果发现损耗组自传体记忆生动性和情绪强度显著低于控制组。实验二采用不同的干扰任务进一步探讨执行控制资源损耗的影响,结果显示中央执行的资源损耗对生动性和情绪强度影响最大,而视空间模板、语音环资源损耗的影响次之,且二者无显著差异。实验结果支持了自传体记忆的执行控制资源受损理论和资源有限理论,并对临床治疗具有实际应用价值。

Aesearch has been done on the development, spontaneous circulation and interference of emotions derived from sad images of the individual＇s life. The content of these images is derived from negative life events of the past. According to the autobiographical memory model, it is believed that these images, because they are autobiographically based, are composed of many fragments of particular event details rather than retrievable as a unified whole picture, and may thus lead to incomplete or inaccurate extraction. Williams et al. （2007） has confirmed that in traumatized individuals with ego depletion, the vividness of autobiographical memory will be relatively reduced. Few other studies have confirmed that ego depletion affects emotional vividness of autobiographical memory. The purpose of this research study is to investigate whether ego depletion influences emotional vividness of autobiographical memory and emotional intensity. Andrade et al. concluded that interfering with the visuospatial slave system of working memory could potentially be used to blunt the emotional intensily of traumatic images during therapy, and thus provide an intervention tool for severely distressed patients, The therapeutic benefit of a visuospatial interference task during imaginal reliving rests on the assumption that traumatic images are visual in content. Although visual representations are indeed most common, intrusive images do occur in other modalities （e.g., Sounds, smells, bodily sensations） and often comprise several sensory components （Ehlers et al., 2002）. Kavanagh et al. （2001） suggested that these patients might benefit from an auditory interference task during imaginal reliving treatment. Although Andrade et al. （1997） reported no effect of concurrent articulatory suppression on ratings of vividness and emotionality of distressing images, their null finding may well reflect the emphasis on visual sensory modality in their methodology. In particular, they used visual stimuli （photographs） to elicit emotive images and chose anchors for their vividness rating scale that encouraged participants to form specifically visual images. Hence the effect of a concurrent phonological load on emotive imagery has yet to be adequately tested. Theoretically, dual-task interference from concurrent visuospatial or auditory tasks should depend on the specific sensory modality of the image. Thus, the present experiments were designed to investigate the effects of concurrent visual and auditory interference on emotive imagery, but using stimulus materials and rating scales that were not a priori biased towards the visual sensory modality. If the disruption proves specific to the modality of the image, this would provide a far stronger test of the working memory model＇s applicability. In experiment I, the present study used a Color Stroop task and Autobiographical Memory Test （AMT） to test the hypothesis that depleting self-regulation resources could analogously reduce the vividness and emotional impact of autobiographical memories. Our hypothesis that depleted participants would retrieve fewer specific memories to AMT cues relative to controls was supported, even when mood levels were covaried, The results indicate that self-regulation depletion can reduce the vividness and emotional intensity of emotion-related autobiographical memory. In experiment 2, the present study used the Working Memory Model and Dual task interference paradigm. The results indicate that concurrent articulation do not reduce vividness and emotional intensity ratings of auditory images to a greater extent than eye movements, whereas concurrent eye movement and articulatory suppression reduce vividness and emotional intensity ratings of auditory images to a lesser extent than the central executive system. Such modality-specific dual-task interference could usefully contribute to the treatment and management of intrusive distressing images in both clinical and non-clinical settings.