Detrimental and Beneficial Effects in Ongoing and Lasting Collaborative Memory: Insight From the Emotional Timeout Procedure

Abstract

Existing collaborative memory research has shown statistically significant detrimental and beneficial effects (i.e., collaborative inhibition, error pruning, and post-collaborative memory benefit). However, it remains unknown yet whether they are modulated by stimulus emotionality of adjacent stimuli and whether they would differ in distinct memory tasks (item memory vs. source memory). To address these issues, the current study adopted the emotional timeout procedure, where participants individually studied a series of triplets (a preceding neutral word, a modulator word of taboo, nontaboo negative, neutral, or positive emotionality, and a following neutral word) displayed in red or green, and three recall sessions and a surprise recognition test was conducted afterwards. Results revealed reliable beneficial effects of collaboration. (a) The error pruning was reliably observed within ongoing and lasting collaboration in item memory tasks while it faded away post-collaboration in source memory conditions. (b) The post-collaborative memory benefit was confirmed in all word positions. It occurred in taboo, neutral, and positive words for modulators of different emotionality, while that of the preceding and following neutral words were insensitive to the emotionality of the modulator. The effect was only present in item memory, offering compelling evidence for dual-process models. (c) Collaboration facilitated the picked-up effect and the formation of shared memory. However, the detrimental effect of collaborative inhibition was absent in both memory tasks. These findings demonstrated that the mechanisms of the retrieval strategy disruption hypothesis (RSDH) took effect under the emotional timeout procedure to a certain degree.

Benefits and Detriments of Social Collaborative Memory in Turn-Taking and Directed Forgetting

“…By contrast, some other investigators (Barber et al, 2017;Choi et al, 2017;Ke et al, 2017;Nie & Deng, 2023) focused on various emotional situations, but they found mixed evidence of the detrimental effect of collaborative inhibition from different kinds of emotional valences. Ke et al (2017, Experiment 1) found stronger evidence of the amplitude of collaborative inhibition for recalling emotional words (including positive and negative) vs. neutral words; while there was no relative difference in the recall of positive and negative emotional words.…”

“…Collaborative memory is operationally defined as the memory for experiences previously encountered individually or collaboratively but retrieved collaboratively (Abel & Bäuml, 2020;Browning et al, 2018;Choi et al, 2017;Ke et al, 2017;Maswood et al, 2019;Nie et al, 2019Nie et al, , 2022Nie et al, , 2021bNumbers et al, 2014). Information learned in collaboration can be incorporated into a partner's memory and is also subject to reconstruction, elaboration, or even distortion (Bays et al, 2017;Hinds & Payne, 2018;Maswood et al, 2021;Nie & Deng, 2023;Nie et al, 2019Nie et al, , 2022Nie et al, , 2021b.…”

“…Prior investigators have put forward a typical paradigm for studying how social collaboration shapes memory. In this paradigm, participants are first requested to encode a series of events individually and are then divided into subgroups, to be tested either individually or collaboratively (Abel & Bäuml, 2020;Barber et al, 2017;Browning et al, 2018;Nie & Deng, 2023;Nie et al, 2019;Nie et al, 2022;Nie et al, 2021b; also see Marion & Thorley, 2016 for a review). The overwhelming consensus from researchers employing this paradigm has been that there is a mnemonic benefit for participants working collaboratively vs. individually, with accurate recall facilitated by an increased number of contributors (Barber et al, 2017;Browning et al, 2018;Harris et al, 2018;Maswood et al, 2019; also see Marion & Thorley, 2016 for a review).…”

“…Second, RSDH also relates to the benefit of error pruning, because collaborative members can benefit from working together. During the collaboration, when group members are allowed to communicate with each other at their will, their mutual feedback can trim erroneous intrusions; and, as a consequence, error pruning is triggered (Hyman et al, 2013;Nie & Deng, 2023;Nie et al, 2019;Nie et al, 2022Nie et al, , 2021bRossi-Arnaud et al, 2019;Vredeveldt et al, 2016;Weigold et al, 2014).…”

“…A meta-analytic review has found that the amplitude of collaborative inhibition was larger in the free-flowing procedure than in the turn-taking counterpart (Marion & Thorley, 2016). In the free-flowing procedure, collaborative members are not only instructed to retrieve as much information as possible but also allowed to discuss with each other freely, leaving members to settle disagreements according to their own will (Harris et al, 2018;Nie & Deng, 2023;Nie et al, 2019;Nie et al, 2022Nie et al, , 2021b. In the turn-taking procedure, collaborative members are also instructed to retrieve as much information as possible but should retrieve in turns, which means that each is permitted to retrieve an item when it is their turn, without discussion or comment; only an item that has not already been retrieved can be reported in each turn (Barber et al, 2017;Bärthel et al, 2017;Harris et al, 2018; also see Marion & Thorley, 2016 for a review).…”