| Popis: |
Involuntary memories are thought to affect emotion, cognition, and behaviour, and it is often assumed that their impact is amplified by the fact that they tend to be rich in mental imagery. However, this assumption has not been subject to direct experimental investigation. The current study tested a newly-developed paradigm designed to induce involuntary memories and provide a means to test their effects, and the role of mental imagery, directly. In a within-subject design, an unselected young adult (mostly student) sample (N = 53) participated in a lab-based study. Participants generated emotionally-valenced mental images or sentences via combining ambiguous pictures with positive or negative word captions. They then completed tasks designed to trigger involuntary memories of the previously generated images and sentences and to assess their impacts on mood and cognition. Voluntary retrieval of the picture-word pairs was also assessed. Participants reported experiencing involuntary memories of previously generated images and sentences. However, there were no detectable effects of mental imagery on measures of involuntary memory. In exploratory analyses, generation of more vivid mental images was associated with a greater number of involuntary memories. Further, participants recalled more word captions from picture-word pairs used to generate images than from those used to generate sentences. Overall, the newly developed paradigm provides a means to test assumptions about the impact and functions of involuntary memories directly via experimental manipulation, opening up a number of opportunities for future research. |
