The cognitive effort associated with remembering (R) vs forgetting (F) neutral and negative words was analyzed through a visual detection task integrated in an item-method directed forgetting task. Thirty-three younger adults participated in the experiment while their electrophysiological activity was registered in the study phase. The results shown: (1) negative words evoked more positive ERPs than neutral words on frontal regions, suggesting a preferential processing of negative words. (2) F-cues evoked more positive ERPs than R-cues did for neutral rather than negative words between 500 and 900 ms. This effect could reflect the difficulty in implementing inhibitory mechanisms on negative words. (3) At visual detection task, RTs for post-F probes were longer than for post-R probes. In 350–550 ms time window, ERPs were more positive for post-F probes than post-R probes in over right frontal regions and left medial parietal regions. Additionally, larger P2 were evoked by post-F negative probes than by post-R negative and post-F neutral ones. (4) In recognition test, participants recognized more negative TBF words than neutral ones. The ERP and behavioral results indicate that forgetting is more difficult than remembering, especially when words have a negative content, which implies a greater recruitment of parietal and frontal regions.

通过整合在项目方法指导的遗忘任务中的视觉检测任务，分析了与记忆（R）与遗忘（F）中立和否定单词相关的认知努力。有33名年轻成年人参加了该实验，而他们的电生理活动已在研究阶段记录下来。结果表明：（1）否定词在额叶区域比中性词引起更多的积极ERP，这表明对否定词的优先处理。（2）在500到900毫秒之间，对于中性而不是消极的单词，F提示引起的ERP积极性高于R提示。这种效果可能反映了对否定词实施抑制机制的困难。（3）在视觉检测任务中，F后探针的RT较长于R后探针的RT。在350-550毫秒的时间范围内，在右额叶区域和左内侧顶叶区域中，ER后对F后探针的阳性反应比对R后探针的阳性。此外，F后阴性探针引起的P2比R后阴性和F中性探针引起的更大。（4）在识别测试中，参与者识别的TBF否定单词比中性单词更多。ERP和行为结果表明，忘记比记住更困难，尤其是当单词的内容为负数时，这意味着更多地收集顶额和额叶区域。