The present study investigated whether retrieval-induced forgetting of emotional false memories can occur. Participants (N=47) learned 18 associatively structured lists. Each list consisted of 14 words that were strongly associated with a critical word that did not appear during learning. The critical words varied with valence (neutral, negative, or positive). After learning the list words, participants retrieved some list words of each valence from half of the lists, through a word-fragment recall test. Finally, participants were given a free-recall test. We divided the participants to a low-frequency group and a high-frequency group, on the basis of false recall rate on baseline condition. The free recall test showed that false recall of neutral critical words was more frequent than that of both negative and positive critical words. Furthermore, the high-frequency group only showed retrieval-induced forgetting of critical words, regardless of valence. Thus, the retrieval of a memory induced forgetting of false memories regardless of valence. Accordingly, we propose that valence reduces the frequencies of false memories but does not affect on retrieval-induced forgetting of false memories.

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The purpose of the present study was to develop the Depressive Rumination Interview Task (DRI task), an interview method to assess the perseveration of depressive rumination, and to investigate the validity of rumination steps emitted in the task. Sixty one undergraduate and graduate students participated in the study. Participants completed self-report measures of depressive rumination (Negative Rumination of the Japanese version of the Response Styles Questionnaire) and depression (the Japanese version of the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale). They also undertook the DRI task. In this task, participants answered the questions “Why is it that X makes you feel depressed?”, where X was either the initial topic of depression they mentioned, or their response at the previous step. The number of rumination steps emitted in the DRI task significantly positively correlated with depression (r=.29, p<.05), and marginally significantly positively correlated with self-report measure of depressive rumination (r=.24, p<.10). These results suggested moderate validity of rumination steps. It was suggested that refinement of the DRI task and re-examination of the validity of rumination steps emitted in the task were needed. Improved assessment methods of depressive rumination will contribute to a better understanding of this perseverative negative thinking.

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This study aimed to develop a Japanese version of Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) developed by Gross & John (2003). The two-dimension ERQ structure was confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis, and each of the two scales (Reappraisal and Suppression) showed enough internal consistency and test-retest reliability in a Japanese undergraduate sample (N=541). Japanese version of Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ-J) showed the predicted associations with measures of personality, emotion experience, emotion suppression, and well-being. Reappraisal was positively correlated with well-being, whereas negatively correlated with neuroticism and negative emotion experience. Suppression, in contrast, was positively correlated with emotion suppression, whereas negatively correlated with extraversion. Suppression was not correlated with negative emotion experience or well-being. These findings suggest that ERQ-J is a reliable and valid measure to identify two emotion regulation strategies.

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