Reducing vividness and emotional intensity of recurrent "flashforwards" by taxing working memory: an analogue study.

Several studies have found that making eye movements while retrieving visual images about past negative events reduces their vividness and emotional intensity. A working memory account states that eye movements tax working memory and interfere with visual imagery, thus degrading images. This study examined whether eye movements also affect recurrent, intrusive visual images about potential future catastrophes ("flashforwards") in a sample of female undergraduates who had indicated on a screening-scale that they suffer from such intrusions.