Conference Proceedings

2011 BPS Annual Conference

Conference Venue: Marriott Hotel, Glasgow
British Psychological Society

From: 04 May 2011
To: 06 May 2011

 
Poster(s)

The relationship between Mindfulness and Retrieval-Induced Forgetting

David Groome
University of Westminster

Robin Law
University of Westminster

Samantha Dench
University of Westminster


Objectives: The aim of this study was to explore the relationship between Retrieval-Induced Forgetting (RIF) and Mindfulness. Retrieval-Induced Forgetting refers to the finding that retrieving an item from memory impairs the subsequent retrieval of related items, and a strong RIF performance is thought to indicate effective inhibition of unwanted memories. Mindfulness involves the ability of an individual to focus their attention on the moment they are in, without distraction from thoughts and memories from other time periods. This study investigates the hypothesis that individuals with high RIF scores will score highly on a measure of Mindfulness, since both involve the suppression of previous memories.
Design: This study used a correlational design.
Methods: 90 participants were tested for their RIF performance, using the established RIF procedure introduced by Anderson et al. (1994). The same participants also completed the MAAS scale, an established questionnaire measure of mindfulness. They also completed the Spielberger State Anxiety questionnaire to measure their level of anxiety at the time of the test.
Results: The results showed a significant correlation between RIF scores and mindfulness. Both measures were found to correlate inversely with anxiety.
Conclusions: These findings are consistent with the Attentional Control theory (Eysenck et al., 2007), which proposes that anxiety causes an impairment of cognitive inhibition. However, both RIF and mindfulness were found to correlate inversely with anxiety, so it is possible that variations in anxiety could explain the RIF/MAAS correlation.