Characteristics Of Memory Updating Of Three Types Of Ruminators And Intervention Study

Rumination is the spontaneous,repetitive thinking about the causes,consequences,and symptoms of one's negative affect.Memory updating is one of the three sub-components of executive function,which is to continuously modify the contents of working memory in order to incorporate new information based on task goals.The relationship between rumination and memory updating is a hot research topic in recent years.But the rumination classification in previous research has limitations,and research conclusions on ruminantion and memory updating are inconsistent.Moreover there is lacking of longitudinal study in the area.The present study aims to investigate the characteristics and differences of memory updating among the three types of ruminators(positive ruminator,negative ruminator,and low ruminator)to deepen the understanding of the cognitive processing mechanism of rumination.In this study,emotional vocabulary was used as the experimental material,and a memory updating experiment was performed using the 2-back paradigm.In Study 1,we explored the characteristics of memory updating of three types of ruminators without any affective priming.In Study 2,we explored the characteristics of the memory updating of three types of ruminators under positive and negative emotions using affect priming paradigm of autobiographical emotional memory.In Study 3,using longitudinal research design,we conducted a five-week rumination intervention on negative ruminators and explored the effect of the change in the type of ruminators on the memory updating.The main results of this study are as follows:1.In the condition without affective priming,the memory updating of low ruminators was significantly worser than that of positive and negative ruminators,and there was no difference between the positive and negative ruminators' memory updating;and the three types of ruminatiors had the same reaction pattern for different emotional stimulus in the memory updating task.2.Positive emotions had a promoting effect on the memory updating of the three types of ruminators,but there was no significant difference in the promotion of the three.3.Negative emotions had little harm to the memory updating of positive and low ruminators,but they were much more detrimental to the memory updating of negative ruminators.Furthermore,negative ruminators became insensitive to emotional stimulus under negative emotions.4.The intervention on negative ruminators could effectively promote positive rumination,weaken negative ruminative thinking,reduce depression,improve subjective well-being,and improve memory updating.The conclusions of this study are as follows:positive ruminators have better memory updating functions under different experimental conditions,and the memory updating of the low and negative ruminators are respectively affected by rumination habits and negative emotions.