Re-encountering the phobic cue within days after a reconsolidation intervention is crucial to observe a lasting fear reduction in spider phobia.

Memory reconsolidation interventions offer an exciting alternative to exposure treatment because they may target fear memories directly, thereby preventing relapse. A previous reconsolidation intervention for spider fear abruptly reduced avoidance behaviour, whereas changes in self-reported fear followed later. In this pre-registered placebo-controlled study, we first aimed to conceptually replicate these effects in spider phobia.

Reality Cheque: Different Methods of Eliciting Fear-Related Beliefs Reveal Multiple Representations of Threat.

Influential models of fears and phobias suggest that irrational threat beliefs underpin excessive fear. Yet, many fearful individuals recognize their fear is not justified. Drawing on memory competition/multiple representations theory, we developed a novel, fear-relevant procedure, which reveals conflicting representations of threat.

Emotional associative memory is disrupted by directed forgetting.

Memory is susceptible to voluntary disruption, for instance, through directed forgetting manipulations, in which people are cued to intentionally "forget" information. Until now, directed forgetting has been primarily studied for declarative memory performance. Here, we demonstrate that directed forgetting can also disrupt associative memories acquired through fear conditioning.

Convergence of real-time and retrospective assessments: A systematic investigation of naturally occurring and experimentally induced intrusions.

Background And Objectives: Ecological momentary assessment is a popular method for monitoring symptoms in real-time. Especially for fleeting experiences, such as intrusions, real-time assessments may be more accurate than retrospective estimates. However, there are concerns regarding reactivity effects associated with real-time assessments and, conversely, the reliance on bias-prone retrospective assessments in clinical science and practice.