Not all memories are equally welcome in awareness. People limit the time they spend
thinking about unpleasant experiences, a process that begins during encoding, but that …

Inhibiting unwanted thoughts, actions and emotions figures centrally in daily life, and the
prefrontal cortex (PFC) is widely viewed as a source of this inhibitory control. We argue that …

Attentional control has been conceptualized as executive functioning by neuropsychologists
and as working memory capacity by experimental psychologists. We examined the …

Intrusive memories often take the form of distressing images that emerge into a person's
awareness, unbidden. A fundamental goal of clinical neuroscience is to understand the …

Most people have experienced distressing events that they would rather forget. Although
memories of such events become less intrusive with time for the majority of people, those …

The enhancing effects of emotion on memory have been well documented; emotional events
are often more frequently and more vividly remembered than their neutral counterparts …

Theories about co** with potential trauma have emphasized the importance of concerted
focus on processing the traumatic event. However, empirical evidence also suggests that it …

Whether memories can be suppressed has been a controversial issue in psychology and
cognitive neuroscience for decades. We found evidence that emotional memories are …

When reminded of something we would prefer not to think about, we often try to exclude the
unwanted memory from awareness. Recent research indicates that people control unwanted …

In this paper we provide a focused review of the literature examining neural mechanisms
involved in cognitive control over memory processes that can influence, and in turn are …