And, if you have ever had a roach infestation in your house, you surely know the "ordeal-roach" pair is not unrelated.
Scanning the site for other potential material resulted in finding: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-08/osu-csg080703.php College students get better grades when they take psychological principals courses Which, in turn, lead to a couple of other interesting pages about Tuckman's work: http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/motivat.htm STUDENTS GET BETTER GRADES WHEN TESTED FREQUENTLY IN CLASS and http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/procrast.htm PROCRASTINATORS GET POORER GRADES IN COLLEGE CLASS, STUDY FINDS It turns out that Tuckman heads up the The Academic Learning Lab: http://all.successcenter.ohio-state.edu/index.asp and The Procrastinators' Support Center: http://all.successcenter.ohio-state.edu/dontdelay/index.htm which have some very good stuff for students. This is why I cannot get anything finished. And, now back to work I go. > "Christopher D. Green" wrote: > > Could it be true after all?? I don't know who the whiz was who thought > that "steam" and "train" count as "unrelated nouns," or "jaw" and > "gum" for that matter, but it is an interesting study nevertheless. > http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-01/su-rrb010604.php > Regards, > -- > Christopher D. Green > Department of Psychology > York University > Toronto, Ontario, Canada > M3J 1P3 > > e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > phone: 416-736-5115 ext. 66164 > fax: 416-736-5814 > http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ > ============================ > . > > Public release date: 8-Jan-2004 > > Contact: Lisa Trei > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > 650-725-0224 > Stanford University > > Research reveals brain has biological mechanism to block unwanted > memories > > For the first time, researchers at Stanford University and the > University of Oregon have shown that a biological mechanism exists in > the human brain to block unwanted memories. > > The findings, to be published Jan. 9 in the journal Science, reinforce > Sigmund Freud's controversial century-old thesis about the existence > of voluntary memory suppression. > > "The big news is that we've shown how the human brain blocks an > unwanted memory, that there is such a mechanism and it has a > biological basis," said Stanford psychology Professor John Gabrieli, a > co-author of the paper titled "Neural Systems Underlying the > Suppression of Unwanted Memories." "It gets you past the possibility > that there's nothing in the brain that would suppress a memory � that > it was all a misunderstood fiction." > > The experiment showed that people are capable of repeatedly blocking > thoughts of experiences they don't want to remember until they can no > longer retrieve the memory, even if they want to, Gabrieli explained. > > Michael Anderson, a psychology professor at the University of Oregon > and the paper's lead author, conducted the experiment with Gabrieli > and other researchers during a sabbatical at Stanford last year. > > "It's amazing to think that we've broken new ground on this � that > there is a clear neurobiological basis for motivated forgetting," > Anderson said. "Repression has been a vague and controversial > construct for over a century, in part because it has been unclear how > such a mechanism could be implemented in the brain. The study provides > a clear model for how this occurs by grounding it firmly in an > essential human ability � the ability to control behavior." > > In recent years, the question of repressed memory has attracted > considerable public attention concerning cases involving childhood > sexual abuse. "That was very controversial because it went through two > pendulum swings," Gabrieli said. "The first swing was that people > thought, 'What a horrible thing.' The second was that people said, > 'How many of these might be false memories?' Then people started > asking does repressed memory even exist, and can you show that > experimentally or scientifically?" > > Anderson first revealed the existence of such a suppression mechanism > in the brain in a 2001 paper published in Nature titled "Suppressing > Unwanted Memories by Executive Control." He took the research a step > further at Stanford by using brain imaging scans to identify the > neural systems involved in actively suppressing memory. The core > findings showed that controlling unwanted memories was associated with > increased activation of the left and right frontal cortex (the part of > the brain used to repress memory), which in turn led to reduced > activation of the hippocampus (the part of the brain used to remember > experiences). In addition, the researchers found that the more > subjects activated their frontal cortex during the experiment, the > better they were at suppressing unwanted memories. > > "For the first time we see some mechanism that could play a role in > active forgetting," Gabrieli said. "That's where the greatest interest > is in terms of practical applications regarding emotionally disturbing > and traumatic experiences, and the toxic effect of repressing memory." > The Freudian idea is that even though someone is able to block an > unpleasant memory, Gabrieli said, "it's lurking in them somewhere, and > it has consequences even though they don't know why in terms of their > attitudes and relationships." > > The experiment > > Twenty-four people, aged 19 to 31, volunteered for the experiment. > Participants were given 36 pairs of unrelated nouns, such as > "ordeal-roach," "steam-train" and "jaw-gum," and asked to remember > them at 5-second intervals. The subjects were tested on memorizing the > word pairs until they got about three-quarters of them right � a > process that took one or two tries, Anderson said. > > The participants then were tested while having their brains scanned > using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) at Stanford's Lucas > Center for Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy. The researchers randomly > divided the 36 word pairs into three sets of 12. In the first set, > volunteers were asked to look at the first word in the pair (presented > by itself) and recall and think about the second word. In the second > set, volunteers were asked to look at the first word of the pair and > not recall or think of the second word. The third set of 12 word pairs > served as a baseline and was not used during the brain scanning part > of the experiment. The subjects were given four seconds to look at the > first word of each pair 16 times during a 30-minute period. > > After the scanning finished, the subjects were retested on all 36 word > pairs. The researchers found that the participants remembered fewer of > the word pairs they had actively tried to not think of than the > baseline pairs, even though they had not been exposed to the baseline > group for a half-hour. > > "People's memory gets worse the more they try to avoid thinking about > it," Anderson said. "If you consistently expose people to a reminder > of a memory that they don't want to think about, and they try not to > think about it, they actually don't remember it as well as memories > where they were not presented with any reminders at all." > > Implications of the study > > Gabrieli said the findings contradict human intuition. "What's funny > about that, from a psychological viewpoint, is that mostly people are > quite the opposite in life � a very unpleasant thing intrudes into > their thinking," he said. "They ruminate, it bothers them, and it > comes up when they don't want to think about it. Mostly, if you say, > 'Don't think about a pink elephant or a white bear,' people flash onto > it immediately." > > Anderson likened the brain's ability to control memory to an > individual's reflexive ability to halt an unwanted action. For > example, Anderson recalled once standing at an open window and > noticing a potted plant starting to fall. He quickly tried to catch > the plant until he realized it was a cactus that could have injured > him. "Our ability to stop action is so ubiquitous we don't know we're > doing it," Anderson said. "This idea is that the neurobiological > mechanism that we have evolved to control overt behavior might be > recruited to control internal actions such as memory retrieval as > well." > > Anderson said the findings about the brain's ability to suppress > memory could be used as a tool to better understand addiction and the > ability of people to suppress unwanted thoughts related to craving. It > might also help provide a model to assess individuals at risk from > suffering post-traumatic stress disorder, he said. > > In addition to Anderson and Gabrieli, the paper was written by Kevin > N. Ochsner, a former Stanford postdoctoral fellow now at Columbia > University; and other Stanford researchers including graduate student > Brice Kuhl; social science research assistants Jeffrey Cooper and > Elaine Robertson; science and engineering associate Susan W. Gabrieli; > and radiology Professor Gary H. Glover. The research was supported by > grants from the National Institute of Mental Health. > > ### > > -By Lisa Trei- > > News Service website: > http://www.stanford.edu/news/ > > Stanford Report (university newspaper): > http://news.stanford.edu > > Most recent news releases from Stanford: > http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/html/releases.html > > To change contact information for these news releases: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: 650-723-2558. CONTACT: Lisa > Trei, News Service: 650-725-0224, [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > COMMENT: John D. E. Gabrieli, Department of Psychology, Stanford > University: 650-725-2430, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Michael C. Anderson, > Department of Psychology, University of Oregon: 541-346-4796, > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Relevant Web URLs: > http://gablab.stanford.edu/ > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > --------------------------------------------------------------- > --- > You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > To unsubscribe send a blank email to > [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- ----------==========>>>>>>>>>> ��� <<<<<<<<<<==========---------- Sometimes you just have to try something, and see what happens. John W. Nichols, M.A. Assistant Professor of Psychology Tulsa Community College 909 S. Boston Ave., Tulsa, OK 74119 (918) 595-7134 Home: http://www.tulsa.oklahoma.net/~jnichols MegaPsych: http://www.tulsa.oklahoma.net/~jnichols/megapsych.html --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
