Michael Anderson
Michael Anderson is professor of cognitive neuroscience at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge England, and honorary professor of the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. For the past 20 years, Dr. Anderson has been studying the cognitive and neural mechanisms by which people control unwanted memories, with a particular focus on the involvement of motivated inhibitory control. He is widely known internationally for his work on people’s ability to suppress memory retrieval, and the potential role that such mechanisms may play in inducing motivated forgetting, with work appearing in Science, Nature, and Psychological Review. His current research focuses on developing a neurobiological model of how inhibitory control may contribute to motivated memory regulation, and methods by which this basic science may help those suffering from intrusive memories.
Abstract: Everyone has confronted a reminder to something they would prefer not to think about. When this happens, we often try to exclude the unwanted memory from awareness. Recent research in cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience indicates that people control unwanted memories by stopping memory retrieval in the same way that they stop a reflexive motor response. Controlling unwanted memories is implemented by lateral prefrontal cortex, acting to reduce activity in the hippocampus, resulting in impaired retention of those memories. Individual differences in the efficacy of these systems may underlie variation in how well people control intrusive memories and adapt in the aftermath of trauma. This research confirms the existence of an active, motivated forgetting process and establishes a neurocognitive model for guiding inquiry into motivated forgetting. Such mechanisms provide a candidate framework for understanding the mechanism that produce some instances of memory failure for early childhood sexual abuse.