Psychological science reaction paper - Essay Example

This paper will focus upon empirical findings that support the forgetting aspects of the cognitive process namely whether forgetting occurs as an implicit automatic process of cognition or does it occur as a direct reaction of an explicit traumatic event. The existence of an implicit repression process to prevent awareness of unwanted data is supported by Freud’s neurological model of voluntary repression (Anderson, Ochsner, Kuhl, Cooper, Robertson, Gabrieli, Glover, & Gabrieli, 2004). Freud explains that memory excludes unwanted data from awareness using an automated implicit process termed repression which may be affected by emotional related explicit factors (Anderson et. al.).

Repression is a neural process observed empirically using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Anderson et. al. discuss that empirical findings using fMRI observations of participants during both uninhibited and inhibited forgetting episodes illustrate that neuro-chemical processes occur during the repression process. The two brain sections involved in the repression are the hippocampus and lateral prefrontal cortex. An observed increase of dorsolateral prefrontal activation reduces hippocampal activation which in turn impairs retention of memory.

Both regions are also essential to successful memory formation process and retention process of which repression occurs when retrieval to those two processes is inhibited. The experiment suggests further that the two brain sections have an implicit forgetting process that functions automatically and may be affected by chemicals that occur during emotional episodes. During the experiment when forgetting was reinforced by an introduction of an explicit emotional factor to induce forgetting the participants used their mental memories coupled with an emotion response in the repression process.

The intensity of the emotion correlated to the mind’s perception of trauma. The results conclude that the brain recognizes