Relations between emotion,memory, and attention: Evidence from taboo Stroop,lexical decision,and immediate memory tasks

This article reports five experiments demonstrating theoretically coherent effects of emotion on memory and attention. Experiments 1-3 demonstrated three taboo Stroop effects that occur when people name the color of taboo words. One effect is longer color-naming times for taboo than for neutral words, an effect that diminishes with word repetition. The second effect is superior recall of taboo words in surprise memory tests following color naming. The third effect is better recognition memory for colors consistently associated with taboo words rather than with neutral words. None of these effects was due to retrieval factors, attentional disengagement processes, response inhibition, or strategic attention shifts. Experiments 4 and 5 demonstrated that taboo words impair immediate recall of the preceding and succeeding words in rapidly presented lists but do not impair lexical decision times. We argue that taboo words trigger specific emotional reactions that facilitate the binding of taboo word meaning to salient contextual aspects, such as occurrence in a task and font color in taboo Stroop tasks.     

Emotion, memory, and attention in the taboo Stroop paradigm

This study tested the binding hypothesis: that emotional reactions trigger binding mechanisms that link an emotional event to salient contextual features such as event location, a frequently recalled aspect of naturally occurring flash-bulb memories. Our emotional events were taboo words in a Stroop color-naming task, and event location was manipulated by presenting the words in different task-irrelevant screen locations. Seventy-two participants named the font color of taboo and neutral words, with instructions to ignore word meaning; in one condition, several words were location consistent (i.e., always occupied the same screen location), whereas in another condition, several colors were location consistent. Then, in a surprise recognition memory test, participants recalled the locations of location-consistent words or colors. Although attention enhanced overall location memory for colors (the attended dimension during color naming), emotion (taboo vs. neutral words) enhanced location memory for words but not colors. These results support the binding hypothesis but contradict the hypothesis that emotional events induce image-like memories more often than non-emotional events.     

Be aware of the rifle but do not forget the stench: differential effects of fear and disgust on lexical processing and memory

The aim of this study was to investigate the role of discrete emotions in lexical processing and memory, focusing on disgust and fear. We compared neutral words to disgust-related words and fear-related words in three experiments. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants performed a lexical decision task (LDT), and in Experiment 3 an affective categorisation task. These tasks were followed by an unexpected memory task. The results of the LDT experiments showed slower reaction times for both types of negative words with respect to neutral words, plus a higher percentage of errors, this being more consistent for fear-related words (Experiments 1 and 2) than for disgust-related words (Experiment 2). Furthermore, only disgusting words exhibited a higher recall accuracy than neutral words in the memory task. Moreover, the advantage in memory for disgusting words disappeared when participants carried out an affective categorisation task during encoding (Experiment 3), suggesting that the superiority in memory for disgusting words observed in Experiments 1 and 2 could be due to greater elaborative processing. Taken together, these findings point to the relevance of discrete emotions in explaining the effects of the emotional content on lexical processing and memory.     

Differential effects of age on prospective and retrospective memory tasks in young, young-old, and old-old adults

Remembering to do something in the future (termed prospective memory) is distinguished from remembering information from the past (retrospective memory). Because prospective memory requires strong self-initiation, Craik (1986) predicted that age decrements should be larger in prospective than retrospective memory tasks. The aim of the present study was to assess Craik's prediction by examining the onset of age decline in two retrospective and three prospective memory tasks in the samples of young (18-30 years), young-old (61-70 years), and old-old (71-80 years) participants recruited from the local community. Results showed that although the magnitude of age effects varied across the laboratory prospective memory tasks, they were smaller than age effects in a simple three-item free recall task. Moreover, while reliable age decrements in both retrospective memory tasks of recognition and free recall were already present in the young-old group, in laboratory tasks of prospective memory they were mostly present in the old-old group only. In addition, older participants were more likely to report a retrospective than prospective memory failure as their most recent memory lapse, while the opposite pattern was present in young participants. Taken together, these findings highlight the theoretical importance of distinguishing effects of ageing on prospective and retrospective memory, and support and extend the results of a recent meta-analysis by Henry, MacLeod, Phillips, and Crawford (2004).     

Your words are my words: Effects of acting together on encoding

Social influences on action and memory are well established. However, it is unknown how acting together affects the incidental encoding of information. The present study asked whether coactors encode information that is relevant to a partner's task, but irrelevant to their own task. In Experiment 1, participants performed a categorization task alone and together, followed by a surprise free recall test where they were asked to recall items from the categorization task. Recall was better not only for items that participants had responded to themselves, but also for items that their coactor had responded to, than for items that had not required a response. The same results were found in Experiment 2, even though financial incentives motivated participants to only encode words they had responded to themselves. Together, the findings suggest that performing tasks together can modulate how information relevant to coactors is processed. Shared task representations may act as a vehicle for establishing shared memories.     

Can survival processing enhance story memory? Testing the generalizability of the adaptive memory framework

Research from the adaptive memory framework shows that thinking about words in terms of their survival value in an incidental learning task enhances their free recall relative to other semantic encoding strategies and intentional learning (Nairne, Pandeirada, & Thompson, 2008). We found similar results. When participants used incidental survival encoding for a list of words (e.g., "Will this object enhance my survival if I were stranded in the grasslands of a foreign land?"), they produced better free recall on a surprise test than did participants who intentionally tried to remember those words (Experiment 1). We also found this survival processing advantage when the words were presented within the context of a survival or neutral story (Experiment 2). However, this advantage did not extent to memory for a story's factual content, regardless of whether the participants were tested by cued recall (Experiment 3) or free recall (Experiments 4-5). Listening to a story for understanding under intentional or incidental learning conditions was just as good as survival processing for remembering story content. The functionalist approach to thinking about memory as an evolutionary adaptation designed to solve reproductive fitness problems provides a different theoretical framework for research, but it is not yet clear if survival processing has general applicability or is effective only for processing discrete stimuli in terms of fitness-relevant scenarios from our past.     

回忆任务对合作抑制和错误修剪的调节——情绪效价和编码水平的影响

前人在项目回忆条件的合作记忆研究中记录到明显的合作抑制和错误修剪,背景提取条件的相关研究尤显不足;同时,情绪效价和编码水平对两类现象调节的研究尚未涉及。为此,本文在两个实验中采用经典合作记忆研究范式,以不同情绪效价的词汇为实验材料并以词汇在学习阶段的呈现颜色为背景展开研究。实验1和实验2分别在学习阶段采用了深编码和浅编码任务,回忆阶段则均含项目回忆(回忆已学词汇)和背景提取(回忆词汇在学习阶段的呈现颜色)两种任务。采用深编码条件的实验1的结果显示,项目回忆比背景提取条件的合作抑制更强、错误修剪更弱,回忆任务与词汇情绪效价交互影响合作抑制强度;采用浅编码条件的实验2则发现错误修剪在两种任务间的差异不显著。两实验的联合分析显示,回忆任务与编码水平交互影响合作抑制和错误修剪强度。上述结果表明:回忆任务对合作抑制和错误修剪的调节支持双重加工模型;回忆任务与情绪效价对合作抑制强度的交互影响支持权衡说,且与双重加工模型相吻合;回忆任务与编码水平交互影响合作抑制和错误修剪强度。     

Taboo words: The effect of emotion on memory for peripheral information

In three experiments, we examined memory for peripheral information that occurred in the same context as emotion-inducing information. In the first two experiments, participants studied either a sentence (Experiment 1) or a pair of words (Experiments 2A—2C) containing a neutral peripheral word, as well as a neutral, negative-valence, or taboo word, to induce an emotional response. At retrieval, the participants were asked to recall the neutral peripheral word from a sentence fragment or emotion-inducing word cue. In Experiment 3, we presented word pairs at encoding and tested memory with associative recognition. In all three experiments, memory for peripheral words was enhanced when it was encoded in the presence of emotionally arousing taboo words but not when it was encoded in the presence of words that were only negative in valence. These data are consistent with priority-binding theory (MacKay et al., 2004) and inconsistent with the attention-narrowing hypothesis (Easterbrook, 1959), as well as with object-based binding theory (Mather, 2007).     

Children's working-memory processes: a response-timing analysis

Recall response durations were used to clarify processing in working-memory tasks. Experiment 1 examined children's performance in reading span, a task in which sentences were processed and the final word of each sentence was retained for subsequent recall. Experiment 2 examined the development of listening-, counting-, and digit-span task performance. Responses were much longer in the reading-and listening-span tasks than in the other span tasks, suggesting that participants in sentence-based span tasks take time to retrieve the semantic or linguistic structure as cues to recall of the sentence-final words. Response durations in working-memory tasks helped to predict academic skill and achievement, largely separate from the contributions of the memory spans themselves. Response durations thus are important in the interpretation of span task performance.     

The emotional memory effect: Differential processing or item distinctiveness?

A color-naming task was followed by incidental free recall to investigate how emotional words affect attention and memory. We compared taboo, nonthreatening negative-affect, and neutral words across three experiments. As compared with neutral words, taboo words led to longer color-naming times and better memory in both within- and between-subjects designs. Color naming of negative-emotion nontaboo words was slower than color naming of neutral words only during block presentation and at relatively short interstimulus intervals (ISIs). The nontaboo emotion words were remembered better than neutral words following blocked and random presentation and at both long and short ISIs, but only in mixed-list designs. Our results support multifactor theories of the effects of emotion on attention and memory. As compared with neutral words, threatening stimuli received increased attention, poststimulus elaboration, and benefit from item distinctiveness, whereas nonthreatening emotional stimuli benefited only from increased item distinctiveness.     

Are the memories of older adults positively biased?

There is disagreement in the literature about whether a "positivity effect" in memory performance exists in older adults. To assess the generalizability of the effect, the authors examined memory for autobiographical, picture, and word information in a group of younger (17-29 years old) and older (60-84 years old) adults. For the autobiographical memory task, the authors asked participants to produce 4 positive, 4 negative, and 4 neutral recent autobiographical memories and to recall these a week later. For the picture and word tasks, participants studied photos or words of different valences (positive, negative, neutral) and later remembered them on a free-recall test. The authors found significant correlations in memory performance, across task material, for recall of both positive and neutral valence autobiographical events, pictures, and words. When the authors examined accurate memories, they failed to find consistent evidence, across the different types of material, of a positivity effect in either age group. However, the false memory findings offer more consistent support for a positivity effect in older adults. During recall of all 3 types of material, older participants recalled more false positive than false negative memories.     

Enhanced recognition of words previously presented in a task with nonfocal prospective memory requirements

Remembering to perform deferred actions when events are encountered in the future is referred to as event-based prospective memory. Individuals can be slower to respond to ongoing tasks when they have prospective memory task requirements. These costs are interpreted as evidence for cognitive control processes allocated to the prospective memory task, but we know little about these processes. In the present article, the recognition of nontargets previously presented in an ongoing task with prospective memory task requirements provided evidence for the differential processing of individual ongoing task items. Participants performed a lexical decision task, where some participants were required to make an alternative prospective memory response either to a specific word (focal) or to exemplars of a category (nonfocal). Participants were slower to respond to the ongoing task in the nonfocal conditions than in the control condition (costs), regardless of whether or not prospective memory task importance was emphasized. Participants were also slower to respond to the ongoing task in the focal conditions than in the control condition, but only when prospective memory task importance was emphasized. This task was followed by a surprise recognition memory test in which nontarget words from the lexical decision task were intermixed with new words. Focal conditions, but not nonfocal conditions, showed better discrimination on the recognition task, as compared with the control condition. Participants in nonfocal conditions mapped the semantic features of the ongoing task letter strings onto the semantic features of their prospective memory category, and this elaboration in the processing of individual nontargets increased incidental learning and produced the recognition benefit.     

Recollective Experience During Recognition of Emotional Words in Clinical Depression

Earlier work has shown that free recall tasks produce a robust mood-congruent memory effect in depression, whereas recognition tasks produce heterogeneous results. This study aimed to further investigate recognition memory for positive, negative and neutral words in depressed patients and matched comparison participants with the Remember/Know/Guess procedure for assessing recollection and familiarity. No mood-congruent memory bias effect was detected in discrimination abilities. However, depressed patients recollected (more Remember responses) more negative than positive or neutral words, whereas comparison participants recollected more positive than neutral words. No mood-congruent pattern was evidenced for Know responses. However, the depressed patients responded to fewer words overall with Know responses than the comparison participants. These results suggest that the mood-congruent memory pattern in depressed patients is related to conscious recollection rather than to familiarity. Attentional biases toward negative words and elaboration processes and/or encoding in reference to the self may contribute to these findings.     

Well, slap my thigh: expression of surprise facilitates memory of surprising material

Two studies examined the general prediction that one's emotional expression should facilitate memory for material that matches the expression. The authors focused on specific facial expressions of surprise. In the first study, participants who were mimicking a surprised expression showed better recall for the surprising words and worse recall for neutral words, relative to those who were mimicking a neutral expression. Study 2 replicated the results of Study 1, showing that participants who mimicked a surprised expression recalled more words spoken in a surprising manner compared with those that sounded neutral or sad. Conversely, participants who mimicked sad facial expressions showed greater recall for sad than neutral or surprising words. The results provide evidence of the importance of matching the emotional valence of the recall content to the facial expression of the recaller during the memorization period. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved).     

Does emotion help or hinder immediate memory? Arousal versus priority-binding mechanisms

People recall taboo words better than neutral words in many experimental contexts. The present rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) experiments demonstrated this taboo-superiority effect for immediate recall of mixed lists containing taboo and neutral words matched for familiarity, length, and category coherence. Under binding theory (MacKay et al., 2004), taboo superiority reflects an interference effect: Because the emotional reaction system prioritizes binding mechanisms for linking the source of an emotion to its context, taboo words capture the mechanisms for encoding list context in mixed lists, impairing the encoding of adjacent neutral words when RSVP rates are sufficiently rapid. However, for pure or unmixed lists, binding theory predicted no better recall of taboo-only than of neutral-only lists at fast or slow rates. Present results supported this prediction, suggesting that taboo superiority in immediate recall reflects context-specific binding processes, rather than context-free arousal effects, or emotion-linked differences in rehearsal, processing time, output interference, time-based decay, or guessing biases.     

Prospective memory, emotional valence and ageing

Emotional factors have been found to be an important influence on memory. The current study investigated the influence of emotional salience and age on a laboratory measure of prospective memory (PM); Virtual Week. Thirty young and 30 old adults completed Virtual Week, in which the emotional salience of the tasks at encoding was manipulated to be positive, negative or neutral in content. For event-based, but not time-based tasks, positivity enhancement in both age groups was seen, with a greater number of positive PM tasks being performed relative to neutral tasks. There was no negativity enhancement effect. Older adults showed generally poorer levels of PM, but they also demonstrated greater beneficial effects of positive valence compared to young. These effects of emotion on PM accuracy do not appear to reflect the retrospective component of the task as a different pattern of emotion effects was seen on the recall of PM content. Results indicate that older adults' difficulties in prospective remembering can be reduced where the tasks to be remembered are positive.     

Cognitive processing of emotional information in depression, panic, and somatoform disorder

Emotional Stroop tasks (subliminal/supraliminal exposures), implicit memory tasks (tachistoscopic word identification), and explicit memory tasks (free recall after incidental learning) with 4 word types (physical threat, positive, negative, and neutral words) were administered to patients with major depressive disorder (n=30), panic disorder (n=33), somatoform disorder (n=25), and healthy control participants (n=33). On the Stroop task, panic patients showed subliminal interferences for physical threat and negative words, depressive patients showed supraliminal interferences for negative words, and somatoform patients showed supraliminal interferences for physical threat words. No patient groups demonstrated implicit memory biases. On the explicit memory task, depressive and panic patients showed memory biases for negative words; somatoform patients showed biases for physical threat words.     

The effect of encoding variables on the free recall of words and action events

On the basis of previously determined properties, it was hypothesized that, whereas the free recall of words is a strategic memory test, the free recall of action events in the form of tasks performed by the subject is nonstrategic. This hypothesis was tested in two experiments. In Experiment 1, some presented items were designated as being more important to remember than others. Although this encoding manipulation had a marked effect on word recall, its effect on task recall was minimal In Experiment 2, the encoding impact of events was measured by having subjects rate, during presentation, how likely they were to recall each event on a subsequent test. The ratings showed good predictive power for the recall of words, but not of action events. These results were accepted as further support for a strategic/nonstrategic distinction between word and task recall.     

情绪一致性对有意遗忘的影响

有意遗忘是强调遗忘的有意性和指向性。对负性情绪的有意遗忘有利于个体的身心健康。本研究采用单字范式,实验一以正性、负性和中性情绪词为材料,探讨了情绪材料对有意遗忘的影响。结果发现,三类词语均表现出了显著的有意遗忘效应;实验二在实验一的基础上加入了情绪状态,探讨了情绪状态和情绪材料对有意遗忘的影响,结果发现,在积极情绪状态下,被试更多地遗忘负性情绪词;在消极情绪状态下,被试更多地遗忘中性词。表明个体对情绪信息的有意遗忘既受信息的情绪性影响,又受个体情绪状态的影响。