{"title":"Acute psychological stress facilitates the forgetting of neutral but not negative information.","authors":"Xiangyu Liu, Heming Gao, Mingming Qi","doi":"10.1007/s00426-025-02163-8","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This study investigated whether psychological stress influences the directed forgetting (DF) effect for neutral and negative information. The Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) was adopted to induce acute stress. Subsequently, both the stress and control groups performed a modified directed forgetting (DF) task. Results showed that, (1) For both neutral and negative items, the recognition rate was higher for the to-be-remembered (TBR) items than for the to-be-forgotten (TBF) items, a typical DF effect in both groups. (2) A reduced DF effect was found for the negative items than for the neutral items in the stress group, but not in the control group. (3) Compared to the control group, a lower recognition performance of TBF items, as well as an enhanced DF effect, was found in the stress group for neutral items but not for negative items. These results demonstrated that acute psychological stress could facilitate the memory control process of neutral, but not negative information.</p>","PeriodicalId":48184,"journal":{"name":"Psychological Research-Psychologische Forschung","volume":"89 4","pages":"133"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3000,"publicationDate":"2025-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Psychological Research-Psychologische Forschung","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-025-02163-8","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, EXPERIMENTAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This study investigated whether psychological stress influences the directed forgetting (DF) effect for neutral and negative information. The Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) was adopted to induce acute stress. Subsequently, both the stress and control groups performed a modified directed forgetting (DF) task. Results showed that, (1) For both neutral and negative items, the recognition rate was higher for the to-be-remembered (TBR) items than for the to-be-forgotten (TBF) items, a typical DF effect in both groups. (2) A reduced DF effect was found for the negative items than for the neutral items in the stress group, but not in the control group. (3) Compared to the control group, a lower recognition performance of TBF items, as well as an enhanced DF effect, was found in the stress group for neutral items but not for negative items. These results demonstrated that acute psychological stress could facilitate the memory control process of neutral, but not negative information.
期刊介绍：
Psychological Research/Psychologische Forschung publishes articles that contribute to a basic understanding of human perception, attention, memory, and action. The Journal is devoted to the dissemination of knowledge based on firm experimental ground, but not to particular approaches or schools of thought. Theoretical and historical papers are welcome to the extent that they serve this general purpose; papers of an applied nature are acceptable if they contribute to basic understanding or serve to bridge the often felt gap between basic and applied research in the field covered by the Journal.
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：
京公网安备 11010802042870号
