Amnesia Induced by Suppressing the Focus of Internal Attention

High external attention disrupts episodic content activated near in time, producing an “amnesic shadow” that shows active suppression markers beyond time-based forgetting.

• Why it matters: The work addresses how directing attention outward can reduce internal distractions, potentially by suppressing episodic memory processes that generate interfering thoughts.
• What they did: Participants experienced periods of high external focus while episodic content was activated near in time; forgetting was tested for both novel and already formed memories, including generalization to an alternative reminder.
• The result: Forgetting exceeded expectations from time alone and generalized to a different cue, implying external attention engages an active suppression mechanism that broadly inhibits cognitive systems supporting distracting thought emergence.

AI summary of the abstract · may contain errors · not medical advice · read the paper.