Abstract
Subjects in three experiments saw a short film of a mentally shocking event in which a young boy is violently shot in the face. Compared to other subjects who saw a nonviolent version of the same film, those who saw the mentally shocking version showed poorer retention of the details of the film. Retention was poorer whether measured by recognition or recall. Furthermore, impaired memory occurred only when the event was mentally upsetting, and not when it was merely unexpected but not upsetting. These results suggest that mentally shocking episodes may disrupt the lingering processing necessary for full storage of information in memory.
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This research was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Bureau of Standards. Portions of this work were presented at the British Psychological Society meetings, Guilford, England, September 1981, and at the Psychonomic Society meetings, Philadephia, November 1981.
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Loftus, E.F., Burns, T.E. Mental shock can produce retrograde amnesia. Mem Cogn 10, 318–323 (1982). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03202423
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03202423