Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a behavior recently added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) as a condition for further study. In this dissertation, I present findings from three studies that inform the clinical description of NSSI as well as some of the cognitive and emotional aspects of NSSI. In Study 1, I examined data from a community sample of adult women who met proposed DSM-5 criteria for NSSI or subthreshold NSSI. The findings show that any experience with NSSI is associated with significant impairment. Further, they suggest that greater self-criticism may be a key variable capable of distinguishing between people who engage in more versus less frequent NSSI. In Study 2, I examined the extent to which cognitive deficits in inhibiting emotional information may characterize people who engage in NSSI. Although NSSI participants endorsed greater difficulty with negative thoughts relative to controls, the groups demonstrated no differences on a directed forgetting task. These findings are consistent with previous research on emotional reactivity and impulsivity in NSSI that shows a similar dissociation between self-report and behavioral-based results. In Study 3, I examined how people process NSSI images. Results suggest that people who engage in NSSI view NSSI stimuli as relatively non-aversive. This is in sharp contrast to healthy controls, who consider NSSI images as highly aversive. These finding are consistent with models of NSSI that regard self-injury as providing reinforcement (positive and negative). Overall, the findings from these studies add to the clinical description of NSSI and support its diagnostic validity. Our examination of the clinical characteristics of the NSSI as described in DSM-5 highlights the importance of assessing the presence of any NSSI behavior as well as highly self-critical thoughts. Importantly, we found no evidence of memory deficits in NSSI. Of great clinical concern, however, is the extent to which engaging in NSSI appears to erode the aversive nature of NSSI stimuli. Taken together, our findings support a model in which self-criticism may reduce the initial barriers to engaging in NSSI, with the mood benefits associated with NSSI subsequently serving to maintain it. / Psychology

Feeling forgotten charts a shift in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century English literature that is structured on a crisis of memory. This shift consists in a movement towards a literary construction of aesthetic and moral self-forgetfulness that draws its intense power from an anxiety about human mortality and historical forgetting. Through analyses of texts that depict the need to overcome individual and cultural loss through a desire for oblivion, Feeling forgotten contends that the Romantic period gave birth to anti-mnemonic aesthetic in which the displacement of a perceived loss of the feeling of lived memories into various literary fictions preserves the past in such a way as to answer an unavoidable loss of feeling by asserting that the past, one's own and others, can be felt (again) in the complex affective experience found in reading about the past. In a more ambitious sense, Feeling forgotten attempts to point the way towards an understanding of Romantic and post-Romantic nostalgia as a strong rejection of its melancholic forbearers and as a response to late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century self-forgetting. Indeed, the rejection of this more complex Romantic form of nostalgia, one in which the always frustrated attempt to inscribe forgetfulness itself into the text of memory is productive of the ongoing act of writing, would become the founding principle for later forms of nostalgia that seek to render forgetting as an act that resides outside the written text. Based on a reorientation of Charlotte Smith's poetic archive of feelings, which defines feeling as the failure of poetry to contain and defuse feelings themselves, and the passionate rationalism of William Godwin's early nineteenth century texts, in which self-analysis serves as both the generator and corruptor of the sympathetic feelings found in sentimental literature, Walter Scott's passive, amnesiac romances stage the fantasy of an evasion from the political and material significance of history. / text

Learning occurs not only when we encode information but also when we test our memory for this information at a later time. In three empirical studies, I investigated the individual and combined effects of interleaved testing (via repeated rounds of study and test practice) and encoding (via motor enactment) during learning on later cued-recall performance for action phrases. Such materials (e.g., “water the flowers”) contain a verb and a noun and approximate everyday memory that typically revolves around past and future actions. Study I demonstrated that both interleaved testing (vs. study only) and enactment (vs. verbal encoding) individually reduced the forgetting rate over a period of 1 week, but these effects were nonadditive. That is, the direct testing effect on the forgetting rate occurred for verbal, but not for enactive encoding; enactment reduced the forgetting rate for the study-only condition, but not for the study–test condition. A possible explanation of these findings is that both study techniques sufficiently elicit verb–noun relational processing that cannot be increased further by combining them. In Studies II and III, I replicated these testing-effect results and investigated whether they varied as a function of recall type (i.e., noun-cued recall of verbs and verb-cued recall of nouns). For verbal encoding (Study II), the direct testing effect was of similar size for both noun- and verb-cued recall. For enactive encoding, the direct testing effect was lacking irrespective of recall type. In addition, interleaved tests enhanced subsequent re-encoding of action phrases, leading to an accelerated learning. This indirect testing effect was increased for the noun-cued recall of verbs—for both verbal and enactive encoding. A possible explanation is that because nouns are semantically more stable, in that the meaning of nouns changes less over time and across different contexts, they are more recognizable. Hence, associated information (e.g., about the recall status) may be more available to the learner during restudy that, in turn, can initiate more effective re-encoding. The two different testing benefits (i.e., direct and indirect) may, partly, engage different mechanisms, as they were influenced differentially by the manipulations of encoding type and recall type. The findings presented in the thesis provide new knowledge regarding the combined effects of strategies and materials that influence memory. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 1. Epub ahead of print. Paper 2: Manuscript. Paper 3: Manuscript.</p>

This study aims to analyse the interconnection between human memory and digital media technology, and its relation to forgetting and deletion. The main focus area is related to short messages (SMS) as a form of digital memory and mobile application Delete by Haiku that assists the user in creating poetry out of stored messages. The reception analysis approach was chosen and individual in-depth interview method was combined with focus group interview. The collected data regarding human memory and media indicates similarities between theoretical claims and respondents’ views; memory could be perceived as a narrative, storytelling, fading away. Informants’ relation to memorabilia and their deleting practices are very dependent on the personal and professional characteristics. Besides, deleting practices could be related to organization of a physical space. Delete by Haiku app could be seen as an invitation to engage into playful process of creation through deletion, however mostly for the people attached to memorabilia.

Past research on adult memory for childhood sexual abuse (CSA) has provided support for the phenomenon of forgetting and subsequent recovery of the memories, after a period of time. This phenomenon, however, remains a source of debate and is still not fully understood by researchers and psychological and legal practitioners. The research has provided conflicting evidence about the factors which are thought to lead to CSA forgetting for extensive periods of time, in addition to the processes involved in forgetting, triggering and later remembering of the abuse memories by adult survivors. This study utilised a mixed method to investigate and explore the factors and processes associated with CSA forgetting, triggering and later remembering, in a sample of Australian adult CSA survivors (N = 77). Participants were asked to complete a test booklet, containing the Traumatic Events Questionnaire (TEQ), Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R), Dissociative Experiences Scale II (DES II), Impact of Events Scale - Revised (IES-R), a scale designed to measure persistence of memory (Loftus), and a scale designed to measure emotional intensity at the time of the abuse and now (Williams). Participants were then asked to participate in a semi-structured interview. Seventy-one participants completed the interview process. Five separate analyses were conducted on the data. Methodological issues, such as the use of retrospective data and corroboration of the abuse were outlined. All participants were asked to provide details about any corroboration they had received that the abuse had occurred. The participants were streamed into one of three categories of forgetting (Always Remembered, n = 28; Partial Forgetting, n = 16; and Extensive Forgetting, n = 33). The first analysis (Stage One Analysis One) examined the factors thought to be associated with CSA forgetting, such as abuse parameters (TEQ), current psychological functioning (SCL-90-R), persistence of memory (Loftus), emotional intensity at the time of the abuse and now (Williams), the trauma response experienced at the time of the abuse (IES-R), and current dissociation (DES II), to determine the significant differences between the three groups. A significant difference was found regarding the age at which the abuse commenced, with the Extensive Forgetting group reporting an earlier age at which the abuse commenced. Significant differences were found on the variable that related to being abused by an aunt or uncle, and on the current experience of hostility (SCL-90-R sub-scale), and on the current levels of anger (Williams Emotional Intensity) experienced by the participants. Significant differences between the groups were also found on two of the Persistence of Memory items, namely clarity of memory and participants' memory of the tastes related to the abuse. Finally, a significant difference was found on the participants' current dissociation levels, with the Extensive Forgetting group reporting higher levels of current dissociation than the other two groups. Statistical profiles for each of the three groups were constructed, based on the mean scores of the SCL-90-R, IES-R and DES II, for use in the Stage Two, Analysis Two, profile comparison. Stage Two, Analysis One, provided a qualitative analysis relating to the experience of always remembering the abuse. The aim of this analysis was to provide a deeper understanding of why some participants (n = 23) did not forget about their abuse, when other participants reported being able to forget for a period of time. The results indicated that participants' responses formed clusters, such as older age at abuse onset, failed dissociative mechanisms, constant reminders, and others. Stage Two, Analysis Two, presented and compared each participant's profile against the statistical profiles constructed in Stage One. The participant's profiles included a summary of their TEQ responses and interview responses, in addition to their Stage One test booklet scores. The comparison was made, firstly, on a specific basis against the mean scores obtained by each category of forgetting, and secondly, on a broader basis, against the score range for each measure of the statistical profile. This was done to determine if there was a "typical" member of each category of forgetting and to investigate the within-group differences. The specific profile comparison demonstrated that there was no "typical" member of any of the three groups, with participants varying widely in their scores and patterns of scores. However, when the profile comparison was broadened to include score ranges, 61% of participants, who always remembered the abuse, 44% of participants who partially forgot the abuse, and 47% of participants who extensively forgot their abuse, matched the profile of a "typical" member of their relevant category of forgetting. Stage Two, Analysis Three, provided an in-depth qualitative exploration on the process involved in CSA forgetting, triggering and later remembering, for a selection of participants who reported partially forgetting the abuse (n = 6), and extensively forgetting the abuse (n = 10). Participants' interview responses were transcribed verbatim and analysed, using Interview Analysis. This analysis explored the differences between participants, from the two categories of forgetting, on their experiences of CSA forgetting, triggering and later remembering, in addition to exploring how these participants were able to forget about the abuse; what events triggered their abuse memories; and how the initial memories returned. Issues of memory recovery, while in therapy or under hypnosis, were also explored. Stage Two, Analysis Four, presented the case study of a participant, who had been identified as an "outlier", due to her high score on the DES II, claims of being able to remember abuse incidents that occurred prior to the age of two years, diagnosis of DID, and the substantiated conviction and sentencing of her abuser, based on her recovered memories of the abuse and corroboration from her sister and mother. Her case was examined against some of the criticisms often made by false memory supporters. This thesis found that some CSA survivors forgot about their abuse, either partially or extensively. The thesis also found support for some, but not all, of the factors that previous researchers have identified as being associated with CSA forgetting by adult survivors, specifically the individual's age at the time the abuse commenced and the individual's ability to dissociate from the abuse. The research then explored, in-depth, the issues of: CSA remembering, CSA survivor profiling, and the "how" of CSA forgetting, triggering and later remembering, by adult survivors.

abstract: It has been suggested that directed forgetting (DF) in the item-method paradigm results from selective rehearsal of R items and passive decay of F items. However, recent evidence suggested that the passive decay explanation is insufficient. The current experiments examined two theories of DF that assume an active forgetting process: (1) attentional inhibition and (2) tagging and selective search (TSS). Across three experiments, the central tenets of these theories were evaluated. Experiment 1 included encoding manipulations in an attempt to distinguish between these competing theories, but the results were inconclusive. Experiments 2 and 3 examined the theories separately. The results from Experiment 2 supported a representation suppression account of attentional inhibition, while the evidence from Experiment 3 suggested that TSS was not a viable mechanism for DF. Overall, the results provide additional evidence that forgetting is due to an active process, and suggest this process may act to suppress the representations of F items. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Psychology 2011

abstract: Retrieving an item from memory can cause subsequent suppression of related items. This phenomenon, involving a procedure where participants retrieve category-exemplar pairs (e.g. FRUIT-orange), is known as Retrieval Induced Forgetting (RIF). Individuals who demonstrate greater amounts of RIF also exhibit greater working memory capacity (WMC). Reasoning ability is highly related to WMC, which may suggest that a similar relation exists between RIF and Reasoning ability. The goal of the present investigation was to examine this possibility. Rotation Span and a Letter Number task were used as indicators of WMC and a Cognitive Reflection Test was used to measure Reasoning ability. A significant RIF effect was found, but it did not significantly correlate with WMC or Reasoning ability. These results demonstrate the importance of designing a RIF task appropriately, selecting measures of Reasoning ability, and the theoretical accounts of the RIF effect. One possibility is that by not controlling for output interference, the obtained RIF effect cannot be reasoned to come from the executive control process as suggested by the inhibition account. Although this account is the chief explanation of the RIF effect, it has been challenged by alternative accounts and it remains unclear how the underlying mechanism of RIF is related to higher cognitive abilities. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Psychology 2016

Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-14T13:16:16Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 1133764 bytes, checksum: 97cb00ace24927f692b211780e9bf51c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-02-21 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / Memory is a multiple system made by codification subsystems, storage and recovery of information. The rating can be done through the type of stimulus processed - visual, auditory, gustatory, olfactory or tactile. Inside the tactile memory is found the subcategory of haptic memory, responsible for the acquisition of information by the active manipulation of objects. The memory subsystems show significant drop with the healthy aging and with distinct effects in its components. It has been found few studies relating long term forgetting for the haptic memory in healthy old people. In this sense, this research had aimed to evaluate the forgetting rates of information processed by the haptic modality in different time spans for remember and recognition memories in a thirty six old people sample, both sex, no cognitive commitment and with reading and writing skills. For that purpose, it was used a specific wooden box for the presentation of the haptic stimuli. The procedure is made of two parts, one study phase (stimuli presentation) and the test phase (remember or recognition tasks), realized after intervals of one, ten or twenty minutes. The Kruskal-Wallis test for independent samples showed significant differences between the remember and recognition memory and the time spans analyzed (H = 23,17; gl = 1; p < 0,05). Is was used as post hoc the nonparametric Mann-Whitney test with Bonferroni correction, which presented significant differences between the ten minutes remember condition and ten minutes recognition condition (p < 0,083), although this differences weren't detected in the comparison of the remember and recognition tests for the interval of twenty minutes (p > 0,083). These data reveal that the type of test didn't influence in the recovery of the information after twenty minutes, indicating that the loss of the processed information by the haptic modality in old people starts to stabilize beyond this interval, independently from the evocation test. In general, results show few loss of information when it's processed haptically, suggesting that the evocation for longer time spans in this modality cannot be affected by aging. / A memória é um sistema múltiplo constituído por subsistemas de codificação, armazenamento e recuperação de informações. Sua classificação pode ser feita de acordo com o tipo de estímulo processado - visual, auditivo, gustativo, olfativo ou tátil. Dentro da memória tátil, encontra-se a submodalidade de memória háptica, referente a aquisição de informações pela manipulação ativa dos objetos. Os subsistemas da memória apresentam declínio significativo com o envelhecimento saudável, com efeitos diferenciados em seu componentes. Foram encontrados poucos estudos relacionando o esquecimento a longo prazo para a memória háptica em idosos saudáveis. Neste sentido, esta pesquisa teve por objetivo avaliar as taxas de esquecimento da informação processada na modalidade háptica em diferentes intervalos de tempo para memórias de recordação e reconhecimento em uma amostra de 36 idosos, de ambos os sexos, sem comprometimento cognitivo e com capacidade de leitura e escrita. Para isso, foi utilizada uma caixa de madeira específica para apresentação de estímulos hápticos. O procedimento consistiu em duas fases, uma fase de estudo (apresentação dos estímulos) e outra de teste (tarefas de recordação ou reconhecimento), realizada após os intervalos de 1, 10 ou 20 minutos. O teste para amostras independentes Kruskal-Wallis mostrou diferenças significantes entre a memória de recordação e reconhecimento e os intervalos de tempo analisados (H = 23,17; gl = 1; p < 0,05). Utilizou-se como post hoc o teste não paramétrico Mann-Whitney com correção Bonferroni, o qual apresentou diferenças significantes entre a condição recordação após 10 minutos e reconhecimento após 10 minutos (p < 0,0083), porém essas diferenças não foram detectadas na comparação das tarefas de recordação e reconhecimento após o intervalo de 20 minutos (p > 0,0083). Esses dados revelam que o tipo de tarefa não influenciou na recuperação da informação após 20 minutos, indicando que a perda de informações processadas na modalidade háptica em idosos começa se estabilizar a partir deste intervalo, independente da tarefa de evocação. Em resumo, os resultados mostram que ocorre pouca perda da informação quando processada hapticamente, sugerindo que a evocação para intervalos de tempo mais longos nesta modalidade podem não ser afetados pelo envelhecimento.

Submitted by Marlene Santos (marlene.bc.ufg@gmail.com) on 2014-11-13T18:33:14Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Anna Paula de Ramos Campos - 2014.pdf: 814409 bytes, checksum: 32d1217243f59b3bd3bb5b1d9dfd224a (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Jaqueline Silva (jtas29@gmail.com) on 2014-11-14T18:58:31Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Anna Paula de Ramos Campos - 2014.pdf: 814409 bytes, checksum: 32d1217243f59b3bd3bb5b1d9dfd224a (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-11-14T18:58:31Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Anna Paula de Ramos Campos - 2014.pdf: 814409 bytes, checksum: 32d1217243f59b3bd3bb5b1d9dfd224a (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-03-07 / We intend with this work to examine the issue of forgetfulness from the Nietzschean perspective. Every human action has the intrinsic characteristics of unpredictability and irreversibility. Starting from this assumption, we know then that man is free to initiate their actions and, when this occurs, there is always a purpose in action. Notwithstanding, one can‘t calculate or predict with absolute certainty what will trigger that action, regardless of its results will be misfortune or fortune. Nietzsche tells us about the important human ability to forget. This ability would be related and would move in a constant power struggle with other capacity also of great importance: the memory. We will highlight the concept of "forgetting" in Nietzsche‘s philosophy. This concept will be related to other essential concepts to understand the meaning of activity assigned to oblivion in Nietzsche. We will analyze mainly the concepts of memory, history, promise, resentment, guilt and moral. Forgetting in Nietzsche‘s work is a key concept to understand what he means by a strong health. Forgetting enables to man the emergence of the new again and again. / Pretendemos com esse trabalho examinar o tema do esquecimento a partir da perspectiva nietzschiana. Toda ação humana tem as características intrínsecas de imprevisibilidade e irreversibilidade. Mas, ainda assim, não se pode calcular ou prever com absoluta certeza o que desencadeará aquela ação, sejam os resultados dela infortúnio ou fortuna. Nietzsche nos fala sobre a importante capacidade humana de esquecer. Essa capacidade estaria relacionada e se moveria num jogo constante de forças com outra capacidade também de grande importância, a memória. Destacaremos o conceito de ―esquecimento‖ na filosofia nietzschiana. Esse conceito se relacionará com outros conceitos essenciais para a compreensão do sentido de atividade atribuído ao esquecimento em Nietzsche. Para tanto, analisaremos os conceitos memória, história, promessa, ressentimento, culpa e moral, principalmente. O esquecimento em Nietzsche é um conceito fulcral para se compreender o que ele quer dizer com uma saúde forte. O esquecimento é o que possibilita no homem o surgimento do novo sempre.

Submitted by Cássia Santos (cassia.bcufg@gmail.com) on 2017-03-31T10:56:10Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Nelson Ferreira - 2017.pdf: 1882242 bytes, checksum: 08019550374e3c58e2803f93ef1c4af6 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Luciana Ferreira (lucgeral@gmail.com) on 2017-04-03T12:11:41Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Nelson Ferreira - 2017.pdf: 1882242 bytes, checksum: 08019550374e3c58e2803f93ef1c4af6 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-04-03T12:11:41Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Nelson Ferreira - 2017.pdf: 1882242 bytes, checksum: 08019550374e3c58e2803f93ef1c4af6 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-02-16 / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Goiás - FAPEG / Memory combined with the capacity for rationalization and the development of recording techniques played a fundamental role in the development of the human species and resulted in the capacity to create various technological devices that conditioned profound changes in people's way of life. The object of the investigation is the study of information technology impacts and its reflexes on individual and collective memory, as well as to analyze if the digital paradigms result in the need for a re-reading of memory and forgetfulness in the information society. In order to fulfill this desideratum, a bibliographical review of the authors that deal with memory and its relations with silence, forgetfulness and violence in contemporary society is carried out, and these themes are confronted with the reality imposed by the communication through the digital platform, to the end of the research analyze the recent scientific publications regarding memory and forgetfulness in society. / A memória aliada a capacidade de racionalização e o desenvolvimento das técnicas de registros desempenhou um papel fundamental no desenvolvimento da espécie humana e resultou na capacidade de criação de diversos aparatos tecnológicos que condicionaram profundas transformações no modo de vida das pessoas. O objeto da investigação é o estudo dos impactos das tecnologias da informação e seus reflexos na memória individual e coletiva, assim como analisar se os paradigmas digitais resultam na necessidade de uma releitura da memória e do esquecimento na sociedade da informação. Para cumprir tal desiderato efetua-se a revisão bibliográfica dos autores que abordam a memória e suas relações com o silêncio, esquecimento e a violência na sociedade contemporânea e confrontam-se esses temas com a realidade imposta pela comunicação por meio da plataforma digital, para ao final da investigação analisar as recentes publicações científicas no que concerne a memória e o esquecimento na sociedade em rede.