Changing negative autobiographical memories in the lab: a comparison of three eye-movement tasks

Abstract

There is strong evidence that executing eye-movement (EM) tasks that load working memory (WM) while thinking of an emotional memory reduces the emotionality and vividness of this memory. According to WM theory, EM tasks that load WM more should be more effective to devalue emotional memories. In this study, we compared three EM tasks: dot tracking, letter identification, and a combination of dot tracking and letter identification. First, participants completed a reaction time (RT) task to assess the WM load of the three EM tasks relative to a control task (viewing a black screen). Then, participants were asked to think of a negative autobiographical memory while executing one of these EM tasks and asked to recall another negative memory while executing the control task. Before and after each task, participants rated emotionality and vividness of the memory. All EM tasks slowed down RTs relative to the control task, and the letter identification task induced the largest RTs. Reductions of vividness relative to the control task, however, were comparable across the EM tasks, and there were no reliable reductions of emotionality. We discuss these findings in light of the WM theory and alternative theories for the effects of dual-task interventions.

The Effectiveness of Dual-task Interventions for Modulating Emotional Memories in the Laboratory: A Meta-Analysis

“…Moreover, the grouping of dual-task difficulty was based on previous studies employing a reaction time task to assess cognitive load (e.g., Engelhard, van Uijen, et al, 2010;Mertens, Krypotos, et al, 2019). This has been done for most dual-tasks that were used in the metaanalysis, but not for all (such as finger tapping).…”

“…We found no instances of selective reporting, but it can be hard to detect selective reporting and p-hacking in published articles (Simmons, Nelson, & Simonsohn, 2011). Only one of 44 studies was pre-registered (Mertens, Krypotos, et al, 2019). 3We assessed whether the experimenter was blinded to the experimental condition.…”

“…According to the above-mentioned WM theory, more demanding dual-tasks should be more effective to modulate emotional memories. Several studies have investigated this issue by increasing the WM load of their dual-tasks and indeed found support for this hypothesis (Maxfield, Melnyk, & Hayman, 2008;van Veen et al, 2015), though this was not the case in all studies (Engelhard, van den Hout, & Smeets, 2011a;Mertens, Krypotos, et al, 2019).…”

“…However, in some studies, the results are weak and inconsistent across different dual-tasks (e.g., Mertens, Krypotos, et al, 2019).…”

Verbal suggestions about treatment effectiveness do not modulate the effectiveness of a laboratory model of EMDR therapy: Results of two preregistered studies

“…After the instructions manipulation, participants continued with the eye-movements intervention phase. Following the procedure developed by van den Hout et al 2001, and commonly used in similar studies (Gunter & Bodner, 2008;Littel et al, 2017;Mertens et al, 2018;van Veen et al, 2020), participants were first instructed to recall two unpleasant and vivid autobiographical memories and rate their unpleasantness on a scale from 0 to 100. Memories rated between 60 and 90 were selected and were then ranked in order of unpleasantness.…”