Recognition Memory of Words Can Be Impaired by Task-Irrelevant Emotional Encoding Contexts: The Moderating Effect of SOA and Context Duration

Abstract

The present study attempted to investigate the influences of emotional arousal, stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) of context and target, context duration of task-irrelevant picture and context on recognition memory of words using study-test paradigm. During study, words were superimposed centrally onto emotional contexts, and subjects were asked to just remember the words. During test, both studied and new words were presented without the emotional contexts and subjects had to make "old/new" judgments for those words. We found that, compared with the neutral context, the emotional context impaired recognition of words. And the impairing effect of the emotional contexts was influenced by the context duration.