Grant: Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships - Doctoral

Although we often view forgetting as undesirable, when performed intentionally, it can be adaptive because it helps limit the processing of unwanted information so that we can commit more important information to memory. Since our memory would not function properly without the ability to intentionally forget, it is as important to understand how people intentionally forget as it is to understand how they intentionally remember. Past research has typically examined the ability to intentionally forget neutral words; however, recent research from our lab has suggested that more realistic stimuli, such as emotional words, pictures, and faces hinder the ability to intentionally forget. As such, the goal of the current project is to investigate why emotional stimuli -specifically angry faces- are difficult to intentionally forget. To determine this, we will obtain electrophysiological measures (e.g., skin conductance responsivity, electroencephalography) and assess attention while normal human participants are presented with neutral, happy, and angry faces one at time, each followed by an instruction to Remember or Forget. After the presentation of all faces, participants will complete a yes/no recognition test to assess their memory for Remember-cued and Forget-cued faces; this will provide a measure of intentional forgetting. This project will provide valuable insight into the mechanisms (e.g., physiological, neural, attentional) that constrain our ability to intentionally forget negative social stimuli. In so doing, this work will clarify the ways in which attention, emotion, and memory interact in normal human cognition.