Dissociative tendencies, attention, and memory

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Date

1999

Authors

DePrince, Anne P.
Freyd, Jennifer J.

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Publisher

Blackwell

Abstract

Two groups of college students were selected on the basis of their scores on the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES). The high-DES group and low-DES group both completed the standard and a new dual-task version of the Stroop ink-naming task with xs (baseline condition) and color, neutral, and emotionally charged words. Free recall results indicated that high-DES participants remembered fewer emotionally charged words than low-DES participants. We found a crossover interaction for Stroop interference: High-DES participants showed more interference (conflicting color--baseline latency for ink naming) in a selective-attention Stroop task and less interference in the dual-task Stroop task. The interaction between attentional context and dissociation for Stroop interference and the free recall results are consistent with a cognitive-environments view of dissociative tendencies. In this view, dissociative tendencies, which have been otherwise speculated to be largely deleterious, can be advantageous in certain contexts.

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Citation

DePrince, A.P. & Freyd, J.J. (1999) Dissociative tendencies, attention, and memory. Psychological Science, 10, 449-452.