All
 
|
 
 


Forget What You Have Learned: The Effect of Meditation on Intentional Forgetting
 
PIIS020595920023641-1-1
DOI10.31857/S020595920023641-1
Publication type Article
Status Published
Authors
A. A. Serheyuk 
Affiliation: St. Petersburg State University
Address: Russian Federation, Saint-Petersburg
O. Shcherbakova
Occupation: Associate Professor of the Department of General Psychology
Affiliation: Saint Petersburg State University, Faculty of Psychology
Address: Saint Petersburg, Admiral Makarov Embankment, 6, Russia
Journal namePsikhologicheskii zhurnal
EditionVolume 43 Issue 6
Pages28-42
Abstract

One of the essential aspects of memory efficiency is the lack of recall (forgetting) of erroneous, traumatic, or unimportant information. Therefore, the development of tools for control and facilitation of forgetting is of particular importance. This work aims to investigate the impact of systematic mental training (open-monitoring meditation) on the magnitude of intentional forgetting effect. 106 volunteers (69 women, 18–35 years old) participated in our experiment. First, we measured 1) the intentional forgetting effect (using the think/not-thinking paradigm followed by a questionnaire on preferred intentional forgetting strategies) and 2) the Stroop effect (using the classic Stroop test). Second, participants either completed a course of 30 open-monitoring meditations (experimental group) or 30 sham meditations (control group 1), or were not subject to any intervention at all (control group 2). Finally, we performed the same measures as we did at the first stage of the study in order to register the effect of open-monitoring meditation on inhibition mechanisms that are presumably involved in the manifestation of intentional forgetting effect. We found no statistically significant influence of the intervention type neither on intentional forgetting effect nor Stroop effect. Although, it was shown that after the intervention, in the meditation group, cognitive strategies preventing intentional forgetting were used much less frequently than in the pseudomeditation (p=0.009) and control (p=0.007) groups, and forgetting-facilitating strategies were used more often than before the intervention (p=0.013). These results indicate the need for further investigation of the amnesogenic potential of various mental training types; also, they provide some indirect support for our initial suggestion about the impact of open-monitoring meditation on the magnitude of intentional forgetting effect.

Keywordsmemory, metamemory, intentional forgetting, mental training, meditation, open monitoring, think/no-think paradigm, Stroop test
AcknowledgmentThe study is financially supported by Saint Petersburg State University (project №94615876).
Publication date22.12.2022
Number of characters38795
Cite  
100 rub.
When subscribing to an article or issue, the user can download PDF, evaluate the publication or contact the author. Need to register.

Number of purchasers: 0, views: 157

Readers community rating: votes 0 

1. Allahverdov V.M., Allahverdov M.V. Fenomen Strupa: interferencija kak logicheskij paradoks. Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo universiteta. Serija 16. Psihologija. Pedagogika. 2014. № 4. P. 90–102. (In Russian)
2. Velichkovskij B.B. Vozmozhnosti kognitivnoj trenirovki kak metoda korrekcii vozrastnyh narushenij kognitivnogo kontrolja. Jeksperimental'naja psihologija. 2009. V. 2. №. 3. P. 78–91. (In Russian)
3. Druzhinin V.N. Diagnostika obshhih poznavatel'nyh sposobnostej. Kognitivnoe obuchenie: sovremennoe sostojanie i perspektivy. Moscow: Izd–vo “Institut psihologii RAN”, 1997. (In Russian)
4. Ainsworth B., Eddershaw R., Meron D., Baldwin D.S., Garner M. The effect of focused attention and open monitoring meditation on attention network function in healthy volunteers. Psychiatry research. 2013. V. 210. №. 3. P. 1226–1231.
5. Anderson M.C., Green C. Suppressing unwanted memories by executive control. Nature. 2001. V. 410. №. 6826. P. 366
6. Anderson M.C., Hanslmayr S. Neural mechanisms of motivated forgetting. Trends in cognitive sciences. 2014. V. 18. №. 6. P. 279–292
7. Anderson M.C., Huddleston E. Towards a cognitive and neurobiological model of motivated forgetting. True and false recovered memories. Springer, New York, NY, 2012. P. 53–120.
8. Basden B.H., Basden D.R., Gargano G.J. Directed forgetting in implicit and explicit memory tests: A comparison of methods. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. 1993. V. 19. №. 3. P. 603.
9. Bashmakova I., Shcherbakova O. Just open your mind? A randomized controlled study on the effects of meditation on creativity. Frontiers in Psychology. 2021. V. 12. №. 663881.
10. Bishop S.R., Lau M., Shapiro S., Carlson L., Anderson N.D., Carmody J., Devins G. Mindfulness: A proposed operational definition. Clinical psychology: Science and practice. 2004. V. 11. №. 3. P. 230–241.
11. Capurso V., Fabbro F., Crescentini C. Mindful creativity: the influence of mindfulness meditation on creative thinking. Frontiers in psychology. 2014. V. 4. P. 1020.
12. Cavanaugh J.C., Perlmutter M. Metamemory: A critical examination. Child development. 1982. P. 11–28.
13. Didonna F. Clinical handbook of mindfulness. New York, NY: Springer, 2009. P. 447–462.
14. Dunlosky J., Mueller M.L., Thiede K.W. Methodology for investigating human metamemory: Problems and pitfalls. J. Dunlosky & S. K. Tauber (Eds.), Oxford library of psychology. The Oxford handbook of metamemory. 2016 P. 23–37.
15. Eberth J., Sedlmeier P. The effects of mindfulness meditation: a meta-analysis. Mindfulness. 2012. V. 3. №. 3. P. 174–189.
16. Faul F., Erdfelder E., Lang A.G., Buchner A. G* Power 3: A flexible statistical power analysis program for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences. Behavior research methods. 2007. V. 39. № 2. P. 175–191.
17. Hertel P.T. Calcaterra G. Intentional forgetting benefits from thought substitution. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. 2005. V. 12. №. 3. P. 484–489.
18. Jankowski T., Holas P. Metacognitive model of mindfulness. Consciousness and cognition. 2014. V. 28. P. 64–80.
19. Kabat-Zinn J. Mindfulness-based interventions in context: past, present, and future. Clinical psychology: Science and practice. 2003. V. 10. №. 2. P. 144–156.
20. Kabat–Zinn J. An outpatient program in behavioral medicine for chronic pain patients based on the practice of mindfulness meditation: Theoretical considerations and preliminary results. General hospital psychiatry. 1982. V. 4. №. 1. P. 33–47.
21. Lippelt D.P., Hommel B., Colzato L.S. Focused attention, open monitoring and loving kindness meditation: effects on attention, conflict monitoring, and creativity A review. Frontiers in psychology. 2014. V. 5. P. 1083.
22. Lutz A., Dunne J.D., Davidson R.J. Meditation and the neuroscience of consciousness: An introduction. The Cambridge handbook of consciousness. 2006. V. 19. Ch. 19 P. 497–550
23. Lutz A., Slagter H.A., Dunne J.D., Davidson R.J. Attention regulation and monitoring in meditation. Trends in cognitive sciences. 2008. V. 12. №. 4. P. 163–169.
24. MacLeod C.M. Directed forgetting. Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning. 2012. P. 993–995.
25. MacLeod C.M. Directed forgetting affects both direct and indirect tests of memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. 1989. V. 15. №. 1. P. 13.
26. MacLeod C.M. The Stroop task: The" gold standard" of attentional measures. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. 1992. V. 121. №. 1. P. 12.
27. Nelson T.O. Metamemory: A theoretical framework and new findings.Psychology of learning and motivation. Academic Press, 1990. V. 26. P. 125–173.
28. Nelson T.O., Narens L. Why investigate metacognition. Metacognition: Knowing about knowing. 1994. P. 1–25.
29. Nichols A.L., Maner J.K. The good–subject effect: Investigating participant demand characteristics. The Journal of general psychology. 2008. V. 135. №. 2. P. 151–166.
30. Noone C., Hogan M.J. A randomised active–controlled trial to examine the effects of an online mindfulness intervention on executive control, critical thinking and key thinking dispositions in a university student sample. BMC psychology. 2018. V. 6. №. 1. P. 1–18.
31. Picard L., Reffuveille I., Eustache F., Piolino P. Development of autonoetic autobiographical memory in school–age children: genuine age effect or development of basic cognitive abilities?. Consciousness and cognition. 2009. V. 18. №. 4. P. 864–876.
32. Sahakyan L., Foster N.L. The need for metaforgetting: Insights from directed forgetting. The Oxford Handbook of Metamemory. 2016. P. 341.
33. Slagter H.A., Lutz A., Greischar L.L., Francis A.D., Nieuwenhuis S., Davis J.M., Davidson R.J. Mental training affects distribution of limited brain resources. PLoS biology. 2007. V. 5. №. 6. P. e138.
34. Stroop J.R. Studies of interference in serial verbal reactions. Journal of experimental psychology. 1935. V. 18. №. 6. P. 643.
35. Tang Y.Y., Hölzel B.K., Posner M.I. The neuroscience of mindfulness meditation. Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 2015. V. 16. №. 4. P. 213–225.
36. Wells A. Emotional disorders and metacognition: Innovative cognitive therapy. John Wiley & Sons, 2002. Ch. 1. P. 3–14.
37. Wessel I., Wetzels S., Jelicic M., Merckelbach H. Dissociation and memory suppression: A comparison of high and low dissociative individuals’ performance on the think no think task. Personality and Individual Differences. 2005. V. 39. №. 8. P. 1461–1470.
38. Zeidan F., Johnson S.K., Diamond B.J., David Z., Goolkasian P. Mindfulness meditation improves cognition: Evidence of brief mental training. Consciousness and cognition. 2010. V. 19. №. 2. P. 597–605.

Система Orphus

Loading...
Up