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Sleep’s role in the processing of unwanted memories: Sleep and processing of unwanted memories
Abstract
The concept of 'repression' dates back to Freud, assuming that undesirable memories can become suppressed and that dreams ease repression by permitting these memories to be reinstated. Here, we followed this idea adopting the 'directed forgetting' approach of experimental psychology. The voluntary suppression of unwanted memories results in impaired later retrieval. Because sleep is known to benefit consolidation of newly learned materials, including cognitive skills, we hypothesized that memory suppression would be enhanced by sleep, and perhaps particularly by rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, which is associated more often with dream reports. Subjects (n=42) learned a list of word-pairs and, subsequently, the first (cue) words of the pairs were presented again; for half these words subjects had to recall respective second words (response pairs) and for the other half they had to keep respective second words out of mind (suppression pairs). Retrieval of both response and suppression pairs was tested after 8h of sleep or wakefulness (main experiment) or after 3-h periods of early slow wave sleep (SWS)-rich or late REM-rich sleep (supplementary experiment). Response pairs were generally recalled better after sleep than wakefulness (P<0.05). Recall of suppression pairs was, as expected, worse than of response pairs. Contrary to our hypothesis, memory for suppression pairs was not affected differentially by sleep. In the supplementary experiment, compared to SWS-rich sleep, REM-rich sleep even improved recall of suppression pairs (P<0.05). Thus, sleep does not benefit the forgetting of unwanted memories but, on the contrary, REM sleep might even counteract the voluntary suppression of memories making them more accessible for retrieval.
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“Also, when participants were instructed to remember some and to forget other items during learning, sleep preferentially strengthened the to-be-remembered items (330,381,968).”
From About Sleep's Role in Memory (2013) · cites this paper as [381]
In the citing paper
“However, sleep also appeared to counteracted instructed, i.e., “directed” forgetting effects in these studies (2,330,381).”
From About Sleep's Role in Memory (2013) · cites this paper as [381]
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Metadata
- Authors
- FISCHER, S., DIEKELMANN, S., & BORN, J.
- Affiliations
- Universität Innsbruck (AT)
- University of Lübeck (DE)
- ORCID
- DIEKELMANN, SUSANNE
- Venue
- Journal of Sleep Research
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2010-08-17
- Volume
- 20
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 267-274
- ISSN
- 0962-1105 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1602553625
- Cited by
- 50
- References
- 34
- Citations by year
- 2025: 3 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 5 · 2013: 8 · 2012: 5
- FWCI
- 2.90
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Sleep Research (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Sleep and Wakefulness Research
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory Processes and Influences
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Keywords
- sleep, memory suppression, directed forgetting, unwanted memories, repression, REM sleep, slow-wave sleep, memory consolidation, memory retrieval, dream recall, word pair recall
- MeSH terms
- Adaptation, Psychological, Adolescent, Adult, Awareness, Dreams, Female, Humans, Inhibition, Psychological, Male, Paired-Associate Learning, Mental Recall, Repression, Psychology, Retention, Psychology, Sleep Stages, Sleep, REM, Wakefulness, Young Adult
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