Regulatory focus and affective recall

In two studies, we tested the impact of regulatory focus on recalled affect for past academic outcomes. Because promotion focus concerns achieving gains, it should be related to greater recalled positive affect. In contrast, prevention focus concerns avoiding losses, and should be related to greater recalled negative affect. In Study 1, promotion focus led to greater recalled positive affect for positive events, while prevention focus led to greater recalled negative affect regardless of event valence. In Study 2, promotion focus increased recalled positive affect for both positive and negative events, whereas prevention focus increased recalled negative affect for both positive and negative events. These studies demonstrate that current motivation can alter memory for past affective experiences; the regulatory focus ascribed to a previous event changes the extent to which people remember their emotional experience. Implications are discussed.     

Memory for media: investigation of false memories for negatively and positively charged public events

Despite a large body of false memory research, little has addressed the potential influence of an event's emotional content on susceptibility to false recollections. The Paradoxical Negative Emotion (PNE) hypothesis predicts that negative emotion generally facilitates memory but also heightens susceptibility to false memories. Participants were asked whether they could recall 20 "widely publicised" public events (half fictitious) ranging in emotional valence, with or without visual cues. Participants recalled a greater number of true negative events (M=3.31/5) than true positive (M=2.61/5) events. Nearly everyone (95%) came to recall at least one false event (M=2.15 false events recalled). Further, more than twice as many participants recalled any false negative (90%) compared to false positive (41.7%) events. Negative events, in general, were associated with more detailed memories and false negative event memories were more detailed than false positive event memories. Higher dissociation scores were associated with false recollections of negative events, specifically.     

An exploration of the relationship among valence,fading affect,rehearsal frequency,and memory vividness for past personal events

The affect associated with negative (or unpleasant) memories typically tends to fade faster than the affect associated with positive (or pleasant) memories, a phenomenon called the fading affect bias (FAB). We conducted a study to explore the mechanisms related to the FAB. A retrospective recall procedure was used to obtain three self-report measures (memory vividness, rehearsal frequency, affective fading) for both positive events and negative events. Affect for positive events faded less than affect for negative events, and positive events were recalled more vividly than negative events. The perceived vividness of an event (memory vividness) and the extent to which an event has been rehearsed (rehearsal frequency) were explored as possible mediators of the relation between event valence and affect fading. Additional models conceived of affect fading and rehearsal frequency as contributors to a memory’s vividness. Results suggested that memory vividness was a plausible mediator of the relation between an event’s valence and affect fading. Rehearsal frequency was also a plausible mediator of this relation, but only via its effects on memory vividness. Additional modelling results suggested that affect fading and rehearsal frequency were both plausible mediators of the relation between an event’s valence and the event’s rated memory vividness.     

On the emotions that accompany autobiographical memories: Dysphoria disrupts the fading affect bias

Participants in two studies recalled autobiographical events and reported both the affect experienced at event occurrence and the affect associated with event recollection. The intensity of affect associated with a recalled event generally decreased, but the affective fading was greater for negative events than for positive events. The magnitude of this fading affect bias also varied with participants' dysphoria levels: Dysphorics showed a smaller fading affect bias than non-dysphorics. Additional analyses suggested that the fading affect bias is not a product of: (1) distorted retrospective memory for the affect originally accompanying events; (2) differences in the initial affect intensity of positive and negative events; or (3) differences in the ages of positive and negative events. Other variables that might be related to the fading affect bias are discussed.     

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.     

Trait anxiety reduces affective fading for both positive and negative autobiographical memories

The affect associated with negative events fades faster than the affect associated with positive events (the Fading Affect Bias; the FAB). The research that we report examined the relation between trait anxiety and the FAB. Study 1 assessed anxiety using the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale; Studies 2 and 3 used the Beck Anxiety Inventory. Studies 1 and 2 used retrospective procedures to probe positive event memories and negative event memories while Study 3 used a diary procedure. The results of all 3 studies showed that increased anxiety was associated with both a lowered FAB and lower overall affect fading for both positive events and negative events. These results suggest that for people free of trait anxiety, the FAB reflects the operation of a healthy coping mechanism in autobiographical memory that is disrupted by trait anxiety.     

Cannabis-associated impairments in the fading affect bias and autobiographical memory specificity

We investigated potential relationships between cannabis use and 2 phenomena associated with autobiographical remembering: the fading affect bias (FAB) and memory specificity. The FAB is an emotional affect regulation mechanism that is observed when the intensity of affect associated with experiencing negative memories fades faster than the intensity of affect associated with experiencing positive memories. Memory specificity refers to the level of detail with which events are recalled. No studies have examined the relationships between cannabis use, the FAB, and memory specificity simultaneously. Chronic cannabis users (N = 47) and non-users (N = 52) recalled and described positive and negative autobiographical events and rated the affective intensity for the events at the time of occurrence and at time of test. Participants retrieved additional memories using a sentence-completion recall task, which were coded for specificity. Cannabis users showed reduced fading affect for unpleasant events and reduced memory specificity compared to non-users.     

Age-related positivity effects and autobiographical memory detail: Evidence from a past/future source memory task

This study investigated whether the age-related positivity effect strengthens specific event details in autobiographical memory. Participants retrieved past events or imagined future events in response to neutral or emotional cue words. Older adults rated each kind of event more positively than younger adults, demonstrating an age-related positivity effect. We next administered a source memory test. Participants were given the same cue words and tried to retrieve the previously generated event and its source (past or future). Accuracy on this source test should depend on the recollection of specific details about the earlier generated events, providing a more objective measure of those details than subjective ratings. We found that source accuracy was greater for positive than negative future events in both age groups, suggesting that positive future events were more detailed. In contrast, valence did not affect source accuracy for past events in either age group, suggesting that positive and negative past events were equally detailed. Although ageing can bias people to focus on positive aspects of experience, this bias does not appear to strengthen the availability of details for positive relative to negative past events.     

Age-related positivity effects and autobiographical memory detail: evidence from a past/future source memory task

This study investigated whether the age-related positivity effect strengthens specific event details in autobiographical memory. Participants retrieved past events or imagined future events in response to neutral or emotional cue words. Older adults rated each kind of event more positively than younger adults, demonstrating an age-related positivity effect. We next administered a source memory test. Participants were given the same cue words and tried to retrieve the previously generated event and its source (past or future). Accuracy on this source test should depend on the recollection of specific details about the earlier generated events, providing a more objective measure of those details than subjective ratings. We found that source accuracy was greater for positive than negative future events in both age groups, suggesting that positive future events were more detailed. In contrast, valence did not affect source accuracy for past events in either age group, suggesting that positive and negative past events were equally detailed. Although ageing can bias people to focus on positive aspects of experience, this bias does not appear to strengthen the availability of details for positive relative to negative past events.     

More than a feeling: Emotional cues impact the access and experience of autobiographical memories

Remembering is impacted by several factors of retrieval, including the emotional content of a memory cue. Here we tested how musical retrieval cues that differed on two dimensions of emotion—valence (positive and negative) and arousal (high and low)—impacted the following aspects of autobiographical memory recall: the response time to access a past personal event, the experience of remembering (ratings of memory vividness), the emotional content of a cued memory (ratings of event arousal and valence), and the type of event recalled (ratings of event energy, socialness, and uniqueness). We further explored how cue presentation affected autobiographical memory retrieval by administering cues of similar arousal and valence levels in a blocked fashion to one half of the tested participants, and randomly to the other half. We report three main findings. First, memories were accessed most quickly in response to musical cues that were highly arousing and positive in emotion. Second, we observed a relation between a cue and the elicited memory’s emotional valence but not arousal; however, both the cue valence and arousal related to the nature of the recalled event. Specifically, high cue arousal led to lower memory vividness and uniqueness ratings, but cues with both high arousal and positive valence were associated with memories rated as more social and energetic. Finally, cue presentation impacted both how quickly and specifically memories were accessed and how cue valence affected the memory vividness ratings. The implications of these findings for views of how emotion directs the access to memories and the experience of remembering are discussed.     

When the Red Sox shocked the Yankees: Comparing negative and positive memories

The present study examined whether positive or negative valence affects the amount of detail remembered about a public event, and whether positive or negative valence alters other memory characteristics (consistency, vividness, and confidence). Memory for the final game of the Boston Red Sox-New York Yankees 2004 American League playoff series was assessed in individuals who found the event highly positive, highly negative, or neutral (i.e., Red Sox fans, Yankees fans, and fans of neither team). Valence did not affect the number of personal details recalled, but it did affect memory consistency (greatest for the negative-event group) and memory overconfidence (apparent only in the positive-event group). These results indicate that positive events can be remembered with the same types of distortions that have been shown previously for negative events. Moreover, it appears that, in comparison with negative valence, positive valence sometimes can be associated with decreased memory consistency and increased memory overconfidence.     

Memory for events after twenty years

This is a study of one person's memory for events that occurred twenty years earlier. Memory was observed to follow an asymptotic rate of decay. No experience of recovered memories occurred. Factors found to be related to recall were the rarity of the event, its vividness, and the emotional intensity experienced at the time. Factors unrelated or only weakly related were perceived importance of the event, its association with knowledge, and intensities of physical sensations. Pleasant events were recalled a little better than unpleasant. Though less strongly associated with memory than is location, moderate marking of events with date and time was found. The results suggest that personal memory declines as the images of events one by one submerge into the mass of generalized experiences. The more vivid, rare, and emotional experiences are more likely to remain discriminable, and may be sustained by rehearsal. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The fading affect bias: Effects of social disclosure to an interactive versus non-responsive listener

The intensity of negative emotions associated with event memories fades to a greater extent over time than positive emotions (fading affect bias or FAB). In this study, we examine how the presence and behaviour of a listener during social disclosure influences the FAB and the linguistic characteristics of event narratives. Participants recalled pleasant and unpleasant events and rated each event for its emotional intensity. Recalled events were then allocated to one of three experimental conditions: no disclosure, private verbal disclosure without a listener or social disclosure to another participant whose behaviour was experimentally manipulated. Participants again rated the emotional intensity of the events immediately after these manipulations and after a one-week delay. Verbal disclosure alone was not sufficient to enhance the FAB. However, social disclosure increased positive emotional intensity, regardless of the behaviour of the listener. Whilst talking to an interactive listener led unpleasant event memories to decrease in emotional intensity, talking to a non-responsive listener increased their negative emotional intensity. Further, listener behaviour influenced the extent of emotional expression in written event narratives. This study provides original evidence that listener behaviour during social disclosure is an important factor in the effects of social disclosure in the FAB.     

Emotion's influence on memory for spatial and temporal context

Individuals report remembering emotional items vividly. It is debated whether this report reflects enhanced memory accuracy or a bias to believe emotional memories are vivid. We hypothesised emotion would enhance memory accuracy, improving memory for contextual details. The hallmark of episodic memory is that items are remembered in a spatial and temporal context, so we examined whether an item's valence (positive, negative) or arousal (high, low) would influence its ability to be remembered with those contextual details. Across two experiments, high-arousal items were remembered with spatial and temporal context more often than low-arousal items. Item valence did not influence memory for those details, although positive high-arousal items were recognised or recalled more often than negative items. These data suggest that emotion does not just bias participants to believe they have a vivid memory; rather, the arousal elicited by an event can benefit memory for some types of contextual details.     

Affective valence of words impacts recall from auditory working memory

Abstract

There is limited evidence on the influence of affective stimuli on auditory working memory. The reported study investigated whether emotional auditory words interfere with ongoing auditory processing of words in auditory working memory. On each trial, words with negative, neutral, and positive affective valence were simultaneously presented on three different speakers. Participants recalled the word presented from the centre speaker first and then recalled the words presented from the side speakers. More negative and positive words compared to neutral words were recalled from the centre speaker. After recall of negative and positive words from the centre speaker, the subsequent first recall of words from the side speakers was reduced, regardless of anxiety level of the participant. The emotional interference effect suggests that emotional words interfere with ongoing central processing due to the attentional dwell on the information in auditory working memory.     

Emotion's influence on memory for spatial and temporal context

Individuals report remembering emotional items vividly. It is debated whether this report reflects enhanced memory accuracy or a bias to believe emotional memories are vivid. We hypothesized emotion would enhance memory accuracy, improving memory for contextual details. The hallmark of episodic memory is that items are remembered in a spatial and temporal context, so we examined whether an item's valence (positive, negative) or arousal (high, low) would influence its ability to be remembered with those contextual details. Across two experiments, high-arousal items were remembered with spatial and temporal context more often than low-arousal items. Item valence did not influence memory for those details, although positive high-arousal items were recognized or recalled more often than negative items. These data suggest that emotion does not just bias participants to believe they have a vivid memory; rather, the arousal elicited by an event can benefit memory for some types of contextual details.     

生涯适应力与择业焦虑：注意偏向和归因的认知加工作用

为了探讨生涯适应力与择业焦虑的关系及内部的认知加工过程。采用点探测范式测量注意偏向,问卷法调查大学生的生涯适应力、归因和择业焦虑。结果发现：（1）生涯适应力既能直接负向预测择业焦虑,又能通过积极事件归因方式、及注意偏向和积极事件归因方式的链式中介作用间接预测择业焦虑。（2）在生涯适应力与择业焦虑的关系中受到消极事件归因方式的调节作用：只有消极事件积极归因时,生涯适应力才会影响择业焦虑。研究结果揭示了择业焦虑的内部作用过程,丰富了生涯适应力通过注意偏向和积极事件归因方式影响择业焦虑的解释视角,为通过归因和注意偏向的调整缓解不同生涯适应力个体择业焦虑提供了重要参考。     

Predicting memory completeness and accuracy: emotion and exposure in repeated autobiographical recall

Using a repeated testing procedure modified for an autobiographical event, individuals provided narrative accounts of their memory for the announcement of the verdict in a widely publicized murder trial. The goal of the study was to determine whether different factors would predict initial versus final recall performance. Ratings of negative emotional reaction during the event predicted initial amount recalled, and frequency of exposure to the event predicted final amount recalled. Judged completeness of recall and phenomenological ratings of the vividness of the memory were also related to final amount recalled. The measured variables were unrelated to recall accuracy. Examining memory over repeated recall attempts offers a fruitful way to examine processes in autobiographical memory. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Memory of pain and affect associated with migraine and non-migraine headaches

The main aims of this study were to assess memory of pain and pain-related affect in headache sufferers and to compare the pain memories of individuals who suffer from migraines and those who experience non-migraine headaches. A total of 313 women participated in the study, 86 of whom had a diagnosis of migraine headache. The women rated their state anxiety about having a headache, the intensity and unpleasantness of headache pain, and their emotions while actually experiencing a headache. Either three or six months later, the participants were asked to recall their state anxiety, the intensity and unpleasantness of pain, and the emotions they had felt. Regardless of the length of recall delay or migraine diagnosis, participants accurately remembered both pain intensity and unpleasantness. Together, recalled anxiety, experienced pain and recalled positive affect were the most important predictors of memories for headache, accounting for 41% and 37% of the total variance in recalled pain intensity and unpleasantness, respectively. However, participants overestimated recalled positive and negative affect. The effect of recalled affect on memory of headache, together with the overestimation of recalled affect, suggests that although memory of headache is accurate, it is influenced by distorted memories of affect.     

Autobiographical memory impairment in chronic schizophrenia: Significance and clinical correlates

Previous studies of autobiographical memory (AM) in schizophrenia yielded a reduction of specificity, richness of details and conscious recollection, which indicate both, quantitative and qualitative AM changes. However, their associations with psychopathological symptoms and neuropsychological deficits were not resolved. Therefore, we sought to investigate AM with respect to psychopathology and neuropsychology in patients with chronic schizophrenia to rule out the influence of different courses of the disease. AM of four lifetime periods was examined in 75 patients and 50 healthy controls by using a semi-structured interview. The recalled episodes were rated for memory specificity. Subsequently, one single event of each period of life was rated for details and experiential aspects of reliving (originality, vividness/visual imagery, emotional re-experiencing and emotional valence). When contrasted with healthy controls, patients recalled a significantly reduced number of episodes and personal semantic facts; moreover, memory specificity of AM was significantly lower in patients than controls. While the richness of details calculated for single events showed only minor, non-significant group differences, vividness and emotional re-experiencing were significantly less pronounced in the patient group. Along with this, AM performance correlated significantly with negative symptoms including apathy as well as verbal memory and executive functions. Our results underline the significance of overgenerality as a key feature of AM in schizophrenia as well as a dissociation between intact number of details of single events and reduced vividness and emotional re-experiencing. The extent of negative symptoms including apathy and impairments of verbal memory/executive functions may explain AM deficits in chronic schizophrenia.