Attention can be attracted faster by emotional relative to neutral information, and memory also can be strengthened for that emotional information. However, within visual scenes, often there is an advantage in memory for central emotional portions at the expense of memory for peripheral background information, called an emotion-induced memory trade-off. The authors examined how aging impacts the trade-off by manipulating valence (positive, negative) and arousal (low, high) of a central emotional item within a neutral background scene and testing memory for item and background components separately. They also assessed memory after 2 study-test delay intervals, to investigate age differences in the trade-off over time. Results revealed similar patterns of performance between groups after a short study-test delay, with both age groups showing robust memory trade-offs. After a longer delay, young and older adults showed enhanced memory for emotional items but at a cost to memory for background information only for young adults in negative arousing scenes. These results emphasize that attention and consolidation stage processes interact to shape how emotional memory is constructed in young and older adults.

High-density event-related potentials (ERPs) were used to understand the effect of aging on the neural correlates of the picture superiority effect. Pictures and words were systematically varied at study and test while ERPs were recorded at retrieval. Here, the results of the word-word and picture-picture study-test conditions are presented. Behavioral results showed that older adults demonstrated the picture superiority effect to a greater extent than younger adults. The ERP data helped to explain these findings. The early frontal effect, parietal effect, and late frontal effect were all indistinguishable between older and younger adults for pictures. In contrast, for words, the early frontal and parietal effects were significantly diminished for the older adults compared to the younger adults. These two old/new effects have been linked to familiarity and recollection, respectively, and the authors speculate that these processes are impaired for word-based memory in the course of healthy aging. The findings of this study suggest that pictures allow older adults to compensate for their impaired memorial processes, and may allow these memorial components to function more effectively in older adults.

No abstract

Amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) has been conceptualized as a transitional stage between healthy aging and Alzheimer's disease (AD). Therefore, understanding which aspects of memory are impaired and which remain relatively intact in these patients can be useful in determining who will ultimately go on to develop AD, and subsequently designing interventions to help patients live more engaged and independent lives. The dual-process model posits that recognition memory decisions can rely on either familiarity or recollection. Whereas research is fairly consistent in showing impaired recollection in patients with aMCI, the results have been mixed regarding familiarity. A noted difference between these studies investigating familiarity has been stimulus type. The goal of the current investigation was to use high-density event-related potentials (ERPs) to help elucidate the neural correlates of recognition decisions in patients with aMCI for words and pictures. We also hoped to help answer the question of whether patients can rely on familiarity to support successful recognition. Patients and controls participated in separate recognition memory tests of words and pictures while ERPs were recorded during retrieval. Results showed that ERP components typically associated with familiarity and retrieval monitoring were similar between groups for pictures. However, these components were diminished in the patient group for words. Based on recent work, the authors discuss the possibility that implicit conceptual priming could have contributed to the enhanced ERP correlate of familiarity. Further, the authors address the possibility that enhanced retrieval monitoring may be needed to modulate increased familiarity engendered by pictures.

Often memory for emotionally arousing items is enhanced relative to neutral items within complex visual scenes, but this enhancement can come at the expense of memory for peripheral background information. This ‘trade-off’ effect has been elicited by a range of stimulus valence and arousal levels, yet the magnitude of the effect has been shown to vary with these factors. Using fMRI, this study investigated the neural mechanisms underlying this selective memory for emotional scenes. Further, we examined how these processes are affected by stimulus dimensions of arousal and valence. The trade-off effect in memory occurred for low to high arousal positive and negative scenes. There was a core emotional memory network associated with the trade-off among all the emotional scene types, however there were additional regions that were uniquely associated with the trade-off for each individual scene type. These results suggest that there is a common network of regions associated with the emotional memory tradeoff effect, but that valence and arousal also independently affect the neural activity underlying the effect.

No abstract

Objective-To investigate whether changing recognition stimuli from words to pictures would alter response bias in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD).Background-Response bias is an important aspect of memory performance in patients with AD, as they show an abnormally liberal response bias compared to healthy older adults. We have previously found that despite changes in discrimination produced by varying the study and test list length, response bias remained remarkably stable in both patients with AD and older adult controls.

After seeing a scene containing an emotional component (e.g., a snake in a forest) people often demonstrate a "trade-off" in memory, where memory for the emotional component (e.g., the snake) is good, but memory for the nonemotional elements (e.g., the forest) is poor. The result is an incomplete memory retaining central emotional information at the expense of neutral background information. Though almost everyone demonstrates the trade-off, there may be individual differences in the magnitude of the effect. We investigated whether differences in the strength of the trade-off would correlate with anxiety levels, working memory capacity, and executive functioning abilities. Sixty-four participants studied scenes comprised of a negative or neutral item placed on a neutral background, and memory was later tested for items and backgrounds separately. The magnitude of the trade-off correlated positively with anxiety and negatively with visuospatial working memory and executive function. These results suggest that greater anxiety, poor visuospatial working memory, and poor executive function may inhibit formation of complete mental representations of these complex emotional scenes. Keywords individual differences; emotion; memory; trade-off Although memories often are retained with a great degree of clarity, it is well known that humans do not create truly photographic quality memories. Most of the time, we are unable to retain in memory all features of an event with vividness and accuracy. Rather, some features of an experience are recalled with vividness and accuracy, while others are less clear and may become distorted over time.These effects have been noted many times in laboratory studies of memory for complex visual scenes. Although participants usually can remember at least some aspects of the scene, theyCorrespondence concerning this article should be sent to: Jill D. Waring, Department of Psychology, Boston College, McGuinn Hall 301, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 waringj@bc.edu Phone: 617-552-0659 Fax: 617-552-0532. 1 ANOVAs revealed no effect of presentation rate on the magnitude of the trade-off for specific recognition (F(1,39)=1.56, p=.22) or general recognition scores (F(1,39)< .1). ANOVAs also revealed no main effect of delay on the magnitude of the trade-off in general recognition scores (F(1,63)=2.08, p=.16) and only a trend for an effect of delay upon specific recognition scores (F(1,63) =3.62, p=.06). The strength of the correlations between the general and specific recognition trade-offs and cognitive scores also did not differ as a function of presentation rate or delay; using Fisher's r-to-z transformed correlation coefficients revealed no differences in the strength of correlations between cognitive measures and trade-off magnitude that survived the Bonferroni correction (general, z(r) <2.27, p>.02; specific, z(r) <2.74, p>.006). often cannot remember all the scene's details (Burke, Heuer, & Reisberg, 1992;Kensinger, Garoff-Eaton, & Schacter, 2007a). Interestingly, several factors impact the ...