Emotional intensity predicts autobiographical memory experience

Abstract

College students generated autobiographical memories from distinct emotional categories that varied in valence (positive vs. negative) and intensity (high vs. low). They then rated various perceptual, cognitive, and emotional properties for each memory. The distribution of these emotional memories favored a vector model over a circumplex model. For memories of all specific emotions, intensity accounted for significantly more variance in autobiographical memory characteristics than did valence or age of the memory. In two additional experiments, we examined multiple memories of emotions of high intensity and positive or negative valence and of positive valence and high or low intensity. Intensity was a more consistent predictor of autobiographical memory properties than was valence or the age of the memory in these experiments as well. The general effects of emotion on autobiographical memory properties are due primarily to intensity differences in emotional experience, not to benefits or detriments associated with a specific valence.

Emotional Intensity of Trauma Memory as Moderator of the Relationship Between Posttraumatic Cognitions and PTSD Symptoms

“…Among the various properties of emotions, its intensity was found to have the greatest influence on the phenomenology of autobiographical memory. Emotional intensity was found to be a consistent predictor of recollection, belief in the memory's accuracy, vividness, narrative form, rehearsal, and visceral responses of autobiographical memory experience (Talarico, LaBar, & Rubin, 2004). Moreover, associations between emotional intensity and PTSD symptoms were also found in previous studies (Rubin, Boals, & Berntsen, 2008;St.…”

Recollecting positive and negative autobiographical memories disrupts working memory

“…Second, it is possible that the recruitment of WM processes by the generation of emotional ABMs may have been sustained in time, to the point that these processes were running concurrently to the span tasks. Consistent with the model of Ellis & Ashbrook (1987), emotion (and emotional ABMs in particular) is known to trigger rehearsal and rumination more than neutral ABMs (Talarico & Rubin, 2004;Rime et al, 1991). Thus, it is possible that emotional ABMs may have triggered a greater amount of rehearsal than neutral ABMs, and therefore, rehearsal processes concurrent to the span tasks would have acted as a distracting task.…”

“…Importantly, if the ABM contents held in WM vary according to their emotional intensity, then specific consequences for WM function can be predicted. Compared to neutral contents, emotional contents are known to strongly mobilize attentional and WM resources for a variety of reasons: emotional contents can automatically attract attentional resources (Mermillod et al, 2010;Ohman & Mineka, 2001); emotional contents lead to more rehearsal than neutral contents (Talarico & Rubin, 2004); emotional contents can also trigger attempts at cognitive Working memory and emotion 6 regulation strategies that recruit WM resources (Ochsner et al, 2002;. For all these reasons, there is a well-known asymmetry in the allocation of attentional and WM resources between emotional and neutral contents (Watts et al, 2014).…”

Impaired capacity for autonoetic reliving during autobiographical event recall in mild Alzheimer's disease

“…Whilst we did not find that AD patients reported less instances of emotional re-experiencing as a proportion of their total memories recalled, we did not investigate the intensity or magnitude of such reexperiencing. It is likely that phrasing the emotional re-experiencing question as a dichotomous "yes/no" judgment may have masked underlying differences in emotional arousal between participant groups, which is posited as a critical factor accompanying retrieval of events that are relived (Talarico et al, 2004). Buchanan et al (2006) assert that whilst both highly pleasant and highly unpleasant experiences are better remembered than neutral events, emotional arousal or intensity provides a more parsimonious account of the influence of emotion on memory, with the amygdala proposed to exert a preferential role in the processing of intensity rather than valence (Hamann et al, 2002).…”