The semantics of emotion in false memory.

Abstract

The emotional valence of target information has been a centerpiece of recent false memory research, but in most experiments, it has been confounded with emotional arousal. We sought to clarify the results of such research by identifying a shared mathematical relation between valence and arousal ratings in commonly administered normed materials. That relation was then used to (a) decide whether arousal as well as valence influences false memory when they are confounded and to (b) determine whether semantic properties that are known to affect false memory covary with valence and arousal ratings. In Study 1, we identified a quadratic relation between valence and arousal ratings of words and pictures that has 2 key properties: Arousal increases more rapidly as function of negative valence than positive valence, and hence, a given level of negative valence is more arousing than the same level of positive valence. This quadratic function predicts that if arousal as well as valence affects false memory when they are confounded, false memory data must have certain fine-grained properties. In Study 2, those properties were absent from norming data for the Cornell-Cortland Emotional Word Lists, indicating that valence but not arousal affects false memory in those norms. In Study 3, we tested fuzzy-trace theory's explanation of that pattern: that valence ratings are positively related to semantic properties that are known to increase false memory, but arousal ratings are not. (PsycINFO Database Record

The Emotional-Ambiguity Hypothesis: A Large-Scale Test

“…Valence-arousal relations can differ for positive versus negative items (Kuppens et al, 2013). For instance, Brainerd and Bookbinder (2018) and Citron, Weekes, and Ferstyle (2014) reported that the best-fitting quadratic functions for the relation between bipolar valence and arousal judgments about selected pools of words were asymmetrical. Specifically, unit changes in valence on the negative sides of valence scales produced larger changes in arousal than did unit changes on the positive sides, and hence, the average level of arousal associated with a given valence value on the negative side was higher than for the corresponding value on the positive side.…”

“…Best-fitting regression equations for the relation between emotional ambiguity and the valence–arousal correlation for the (a) negative and (b) positive subfiles of the Toglia-Battig-emotional database (Brainerd & Bookbinder, 2018). …”

“…Three word databases were used: the Affective Norms for English Words (ANEW; Bradley & Lang, 1999); the Warriner, Kuperman, and Brysbaert (WKD; 2013) norms; and the emotional version of Toglia and Battig’s (1978) semantic word norms (Toglia-Battig emotional, or TBE; Brainerd & Bookbinder, 2018). The ANEW database evolved from Osgood, Suci, and Tannenbaum’s (1957) landmark work on the semantic differential and is the most widely used set of emotional word norms.…”

“…Judgments were made on 7-point unipolar scales. To study the relation between meaning and emotion, Brainerd and Bookbinder (2018) revised these norms to include bipolar valence and arousal ratings for 2,184 of the original 2,854 words. The words were rated for how they made subjects feel, using the same scales of valence and arousal that were used to generate the ANEW and WKD norms.…”

Fuzzy-Trace Theory, False Memory, and the Law

“…One states that emotion inoculates memory against distortion and that when emotion becomes intense, it is virtually impossible to develop false memories of events (Laney & Loftus, 2010). But the other states opposite—that emotion foments false memories, with distortion increasing as emotion intensifies (Brainerd & Bookbinder, in press).…”