Emotion and Memory

Abstract

People are more likely to remember emotional events as compared to mundane events. Not all aspects of those events are retained, however, and the effects of emotion on memory can vary as a function of the type of emotion evoked by the event and the time course over which memory is tested. In this chapter, we first describe how the arousal and valence of an event can influence the way it is remembered. We discuss how arousal can lead to selective enhancements in memory and how these enhancements can occur relatively automatically. We describe how negative events can be remembered with greater detail and specificity than positive events, and we delineate possible neural mechanisms that may support these effects of valence and arousal. We then discuss the time course over which emotion exerts its effects on memory. We describe how arousal exerts very rapid effects on encoding processes, faster than those elicited by valence. We discuss how emotion modulates the memory search process, increasing the likelihood that past events are retrieved. We explain how emotional arousal can influence the consolidation of information. We conclude by pointing out ongoing debates, including the role of the amygdala in the consolidation process and the effect of emotion on memory accuracy.

Differential Effects of Valence and Encoding Strategy on Internal Source Memory and Judgments of Source: Exploring the Production and the Self-Reference Effect

“…Moreover, there was no interaction between valence and production mode, indicating that the production effect on item memory occurred regardless of whether stimuli had or not an emotional quality. The EEM on item memory was also absent, against our predictions and the main tendency in the literature (see Kensinger and Schacter, 2008; Murphy and Isaacowitz, 2008; Levine and Edelstein, 2009, and Kensinger and Kark, 2018, for overviews), especially if we take into consideration that both positive/negative words were rated as significantly more arousing than neutral words. Even so, this result is not unprecedented (e.g., Hourihan and Bursey, 2017; Ferré et al, 2019).…”

“…This effect has been well documented for different stimulus types, such as single words (e.g., Kensinger and Corkin, 2003; D'Argembeau and Van der Linden, 2004; Davidson et al, 2006; Maddock and Frein, 2009), word pairs (e.g., Maddox et al, 2012), or pictures (e.g., Nashiro and Mather, 2011; Schmidt et al, 2011; Yick et al, 2015; Schümann et al, 2018). The EEM has also been extensively reported in the case of item memory (i.e., memory for the central features and relevant content of an event such as the words in a word pair; e.g., Kensinger and Schacter, 2008; Murphy and Isaacowitz, 2008; Levine and Edelstein, 2009; Kensinger and Kark, 2018). Nonetheless, a similar enhancement effect has been less consistent on other aspects of episodic memory such as source memory, i.e., the memory for the origins and conditions in which a certain event occurred (Johnson and Raye, 1981; Johnson et al, 1993; see Appendix for a selective review of these studies).…”

“…Based on the evidence reviewed above, our first experiment investigated possible interactions between the production effect and stimulus valence in the case of internal source monitoring and JOSs. First, we predicted a replication of the EEM for item memory (Kensinger and Schacter, 2008; Murphy and Isaacowitz, 2008; Levine and Edelstein, 2009; Kensinger and Kark, 2018), i.e., better recognition performance for both negative and positive stimuli in comparison with neutral stimuli regardless of the production mode, based on the assumption that both production modes recruit similar attentional and elaborative processes. Second, in the case of internal source memory, we hypothesized an impairment or, more likely, a null effect of valence (see Appendix for a selective review of studies).…”

Emotional Content and Source Memory for Language: Impairment in an Incidental Encoding Task

“…The last decades have witnessed a great interest in the study of the effects of emotion on episodic memory. The majority of the studies in the field have been concerned with item memory (i.e., memory for the content of the information), finding that emotional stimuli are better remembered than neutral stimuli (see LaBar and Cabeza, 2006; Mather and Sutherland, 2011; Phelps, 2012; Dolcos et al, 2017; Kensinger and Kark, 2018; for overviews). However, far less research has been devoted to the effects of emotion on source memory (see Chiu et al, 2013, for a review).…”

Neutral and negative mood induction in executive tasks of working memory

“…Emotion research in the past decades has produced many exciting findings regarding the influences of emotion on our actions and beliefs, such as how we think and solve cognitive tasks and dilemmas (Kensinger & Kark, 2018 ; Tyng et al, 2017 ). The extent to which an emotional state (e.g., sad mood) influences higher cognitive functions, such as the working memory system, remains an interesting issue, particularly regarding mood impacts on executive tasks.…”