The influences of valence and arousal on judgments of learning and on recall

Abstract

Much is known about how the emotional content of words affects memory for those words, but only recently have researchers begun to investigate whether emotional content influences metamemory-that is, learners' assessments of what is or is not memorable. The present study replicated recent work demonstrating that judgments of learning (JOLs) do indeed reflect the superior memorability of words with emotional content. We further contrasted two hypotheses regarding this effect: a physiological account in which emotional words are judged to be more memorable because of their arousing properties, versus a cognitive account in which emotional words are judged to be more memorable because of their cognitive distinctiveness. Two results supported the latter account. First, both normed arousal (Exp. 1) and normed valence (Exp. 2) independently influenced JOLs, even though only an effect of arousal would be expected under a physiological account. Second, emotional content no longer influenced JOLs in a design (Exp. 3) that reduced the primary distinctiveness of emotional words by using a single list of words in which normed valence and arousal were varied continuously. These results suggest that the metamnemonic benefit of emotional words likely stems from cognitive factors.Keywords Emotion . Metamemory . RecallEmotion is a fundamental aspect of the human experience, and understanding how emotion influences our cognitive processes is an essential component of understanding cognition in general (Mandler, 1975). Emotional effects on memory could include memory for an emotional event, memory for neutral stimuli encountered while in an emotional state, and memory for emotional content encountered in a neutral state. Here, we consider the lattermost of these scenarios: how the emotional content of material encountered in an otherwise neutral state influences subsequent memory and metamemory.We frequently encounter situations in which we learn and remember emotional information, such as when we read a news article recounting a natural disaster or celebration, or when we encounter emotionally evocative literature. Generally, emotional information is remembered better than neutral information (see Kensinger, 2009;Levine & Edelstein, 2009, for reviews); this has been observed with both pictures (e.g., Bradley, Greenwald, Petry, & Lang, 1992) and words (e.g., Kensinger & Corkin, 2003). In the present study, we examined whether and how emotion influences our predictions of future recall, and what these findings imply about the processes by which emotion influences memory and metamemory. Metamemory for emotional informationDespite the vast amount of research examining memory for emotional information, relatively little research has focused on how metamemory (i.e., the monitoring and control of memory) is influenced by emotion. Some general evidence (Tauber & Dunlosky, 2012;Zimmerman & Kelley, 2010) Mem Cogn (2017) 45:121-136 DOI 10.3758/s13421-016-0646-3 below, suggests that learners' predictions of recall can be sensit...

Simultaneous utilization of multiple cues in judgments of learning

“…Neutral words were low in arousal and neutral in valence, whereas emotional words were high in arousal and either positive or negative in valence. Hence, as has been done in prior studies, we manipulated arousal and valence jointly to maximize effects of emotionality on JOLs (Tauber & Dunlosky, 2012;Zimmerman & Kelley, 2010; but see Hourihan et al, 2017). If information from the two cues is integrated in JOLs, individual-level analyses should reveal that a large number of participants base their JOLs on both cues.…”

“…In paired-associate learning, Begg, Duft, Lalonde, Melnick, and Sanvito (1989) found that cue concreteness and target concreteness both affected JOLs, whereas Illman and Morrison (2011) reported that JOLs were sensitive to cue imageability and target age of acquisition but not to cue age of acquisition and target imageability. Also, Hourihan, Fraundorf, and Benjamin (2017) revealed that JOLs were sensitive to word frequency but insensitive to valence and arousal.…”

Remembering specific features of emotional events across time: The role of REM sleep and prefrontal theta oscillations

“…Such a specific learning experience, characterized by intentional encoding and the engagement of control processes, may be associated with activation in the prefrontal cortex (Ranganath, 2010), which, in turn, contributes to the generation of slow oscillations and thus potentially impacts hippocampal reactivations during SWS (Batterink, Creery, & Paller, 2016;Diekelmann & Born, 2010). The salience of emotional stimuli may attenuate these tagging mechanisms during encoding as the material is perceived as highly distinctive and easily memorable, seemingly requiring less effort to successfully retain the item and its source feature (see Hourihan, Fraundorf, & Benjamin, 2017, for evidence that emotional material influences metamnemonic judgments in this manner). On the other hand, neutral material may be perceived as less conspicuous, thus engaging more strategic processing mechanisms during intentional encoding.…”

Metacognition and memory of emotional information: Judgments of learning predict the affectivity congruence effect in free recall

“…The relation between JOLs for emotional items and performance has not been detected consistently: in some studies, emotional faces are associated with higher JOLs than neutral faces, but no differences in recognition are found (Nomi et al, 2013); in other studies, participants recall more emotional words, just as they predicted, but only in free recall and not in cued recall (Zimmerman & Kelley, 2010). Some studies suggest that arousal (not valence) biases judgments: higher JOLs are given to high-arousal items (that have neutral emotional value), even though no effect of arousal on actual recall or recognition was found (Hourihan et al, 2017).…”

“…Judgments of learning are thought to be based not only on multiple cues, such as general beliefs about one's memory functioning and experience with similar types of tasks in the past (Hertzog, Dixon, & Hultsch, 1990;Mazzoni & Comoldi, 1993), but also on the properties of the items themselves (such as word frequency or concreteness, Koriat, 1997;Witherby & Tauber, 2017). JOLs are known to be impacted by the affective value of stimuli: they are typically higher for emotional than for neutral items (Hourihan, Fraundorf, & Benjamin, 2017;Nomi, Rhodes, & Cleary, 2013;Tauber & Dunlosky, 2012, Tauber, Dunlosky, Urry, & Opitz, 2017Witherby & Tauber, 2018;Zimmerman & Kelley, 2010). There are two popular non-exclusive explanations for this effect: the first states that the distinctiveness of emotional information serves as a cue for predicting future recall; the second states that physiological arousal mimics the feeling of fluency or familiarity (Witherby & Tauber, 2018;Zimmerman & Kelley, 2010).…”