New research from a University psychologist shows that people can successfully inhibit memory of crimes.
The research, which is a collaboration between the School of Psychology’s Dr Zara Bergström and colleagues in the US, including Xiaoqing Hu of the University of Texas, found that inhibiting memory in this way resulted in brain activity similar to that in ‘innocent’ people.
Published in Psychological Science, a journal of the US Association for Psychological Science, the research findings suggest that memory suppression dampens neural activity associated with retrieving memories and also limits the influence of these memories on automatic behavioural responses.
The research, entitled Suppressing Unwanted Autobiographical Memories Reduces Their Automatic Influences, was led by Xiaoqing Hu and conducted at Northwestern University, US. The other members of the team were Galen V. Bodenhausen and J. Peter Rosenfeld of Northwestern University. See.