Emotion and memory narrowing: A review and goal-relevance approach

Mothers' reflections on the diagnosis and birth of their child with Down syndrome: Variability based on the timing of the diagnosis

Previous research has examined parents' reflections on their child's Down syndrome diagnosis based on whether the diagnosis was provided prenatally or after birth, revealing few significant differences; by comparison, few studies have examined parents' reflections on the birth of the child in relation to the timing of the diagnosis. This study was conducted to examine whether mothers differentially reported on and rated the diagnosis, birth, and most recent birthday of their child with DS based on when the diagnosis was provided. Forty-four American mothers of children with DS discussed the birth of their child, when they learned of their child's DS diagnosis, and their child's most recent birthday with a researcher. Participants also completed online questionnaires on which they rated the events and indicated how they felt about the events at the time of their occurrence and at the time of the study. The results revealed that participants who received a prenatal diagnosis of DS for their child reflected differently-and seemingly more positively-on their child's birth relative to participants who received a postnatal diagnosis. These differences were evident when considering participant ratings, emotion language used when discussing the events, and feeling states characterizing how participants felt about the events at the time of their occurrence and at the time of the study. Given these group differences, medical professionals should carefully consider the conditions under which they provide mothers with diagnostic information and support services after a child is born.

Enhanced recognition memory for emotional nonverbal sounds

Emotion often enhances memory for emotional stimuli relative to neutral stimuli. This emotional memory enhancement effect has been studied extensively with visual and verbal stimuli, yet little is known regarding emotion's effects on memory for nonverbal (or environmental) sounds, such as dog snarls and infant cries. Additionally, emotion's enhancing effects on recognition for visual and verbal stimuli are selective to recollection (recognition with contextual retrieval) rather than familiarity (recognition based on memory strength), but whether this is also the case for nonverbal sounds is unknown. We examined recognition memory for negative and neutral nonverbal sounds, predicting that memory would be enhanced for negative sounds and this enhancement would be specific to recollection. Participants incidentally encoded negative and neutral sounds, and memory was tested with a remember-familiar recognition memory task after a 15-minute delay. As predicted, recognition memory was enhanced for negative sounds, was better for higher versus lower arousal negative sounds, and was specific to recollection. These findings suggest that key aspects of the emotional enhancement effect also extend to nonverbal sounds. We discuss how current theories of emotional memory which focus on memory for visual and verbal stimuli can be extended to accommodate findings with nonverbal emotional auditory stimuli.

Emotion and motion: superior memory for emotional but not for moving stimuli

Two effects on memory have been described in the literature: the emotional enhancement of memory (EEM) (i.e., an emotional stimulus is better remembered than a neutral stimulus) and the dynamic superiority effect (DSE) (i.e., a moving visual stimulus is better remembered than a static stimulus). However, the DSE has previously only been studied using complex visual stimuli (e.g., video clips). Thus, the first objective of the present study was to examine whether the DSE will be observed with simple visual stimuli (i.e., isolated moving stimuli). The second objective was to examine whether people's emotional memory will be affected by stimulus motion. We conducted three experiments, two using a free recall task, Experiment 1A (online) and 1B (in-person), and one using a recognition task (in-person). Participants viewed negative, positive, and neutral stimuli in two motion conditions, dynamic and static, and then had to recall or recognize them. In all three experiments, we observed an EEM but no DSE. Thus, our data verify that emotions affect memory performance but provide no evidence of motion effects on memory of simple stimuli.

Emotional time travel: the role of emotion in temporal memory

Remembering when emotional experiences occurred can be adaptive, yet there is no consensus on how emotion influences temporal aspects of memory. Temporal memory, a type of associative memory, refers to the capacity to encode, store, and retrieve information about the sequence and timing of events. This Special Issue presents evidence on how emotion affects three aspects of temporal memory: temporal-order, temporal source, and event segmentation. The contributions suggest that emotion often increases temporal-order memory, a result that is harder to reconcile with some dominant emotional memory theories, including the Object-Based Framework, the Dual Representation Account or other trade-off models, but may fit with Arousal-Biased Competition theory. The contributions also suggest that emotion can act as a boundary between events, although only under some experimental set-ups. Findings regarding its effect on temporal source memory were less clear. We discuss the diversity of findings in light of theories of emotional associative memory and methodological factors, such as the direction of the shift in emotional experience and discrepancies between temporal-order and temporal distance measures as indices of event boundaries. We provide a roadmap for future studies aimed at understanding how emotion shapes the fate of our memories as they unfold in time.

Temporal recall in the shadow of emotion: separate emotional contexts during encoding enhance the temporal source memory retrieval

Episodic memory, with its emphasis on temporal-spatial contexts, has been a longstanding focus in memory research. While previous studies have investigated the role of emotion in temporal source memory using emotionally charged stimuli, such as emotional words or images, the influence of a separated emotional context remains less explored. This study sought to understand the impact of separate emotional contexts on temporal source memory. Participants were shown Chinese characters alongside separate emotional contexts (i.e. a neutral or negative picture) and then engaged in either a retrieval practice or a control condition. Finally, they were tested for recognition, temporal source memory, and emotional source memory for all the learned characters. Results revealed that a negative emotional context, unlike a neutral setting, enhanced the accuracy of temporal memory for adjacent neutral characters. However, this negative context reduced the accuracy of recalling the associated emotion. Importantly, the boost in temporal memory due to the emotional context remained even when participants were unsure or mistaken about the associated emotion. This study demonstrates the complex interplay between emotion and temporal memory, underscoring the enhancement effect of separated emotional contexts on temporal recall, irrespective of explicit emotional memory retrieval.

The relationship between environmentally induced emotion and memory for a naturalistic virtual experience

Emotional stimuli (e.g. words, images) are often remembered better than neutral stimuli. However, little is known about how memory is affected by an environmentally induced emotional state (without any overtly emotional occurrences) - the focus of this study. Participants were randomly assigned to discovery (n = 305) and replication (n = 306) subsamples and viewed a desktop virtual environment before rating their emotions and completing objective (i.e. item, temporal-order, duration) and subjective (e.g. vividness, sensory detail, coherence) memory measures. In both samples, a Partial Least Squares Correlation analysis showed that an emotional state characterised by high negative emotion (i.e. threat, fear, anxiety) and arousal was reliably associated with better memory in both objective (i.e. item) and subjective (i.e. vividness and sensory detail) domains. No reliable associations were observed for any temporal memory measures (objective or subjective). Thus, an environmentally induced state of negative emotion corresponds with enhanced memory for indices of episodic memory pertaining to "what" happened, but not necessarily "when" it happened.

Does enhanced memory of disgust vs. fear images extend to involuntary memory?

People remember disgusting stimuli better than fearful stimuli, but do disgust's memory-enhancing effects extend to involuntary memory? This question is important because disgust reactions occur following trauma, and trauma-related involuntary memories are a hallmark of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms. In two experiments, we presented participants (n = 88 Experiment 1; n = 106 Experiment 2) with disgust, fear, and neutral images during an attention-monitoring task. Participants then completed an undemanding vigilance task, responding any time an image involuntarily came to mind. We measured the frequency and characteristics of these involuntary memories (e.g. emotional intensity) immediately after encoding and over a 24-hour delay (Experiment 2 only). Our main findings were mixed: participants experienced similarly frequent (Experiment 2) - or more (Experiment 1) - disgust as fear involuntary memories. Therefore, when controlling for memory-enhancing confounds (e.g. distinctiveness), in-laboratory disgust memory enhancement does not extend to involuntary memory. Disgust memories were more emotionally intense than fear memories over the 24-hour delay- but not immediately after encoding - suggesting disgust elicits additional consolidation processes to fear. Participants paid more attention towards the disgust images, but the attention did not account for the memory of disgust. In sum, disgust and fear have both similar and distinct cognitive effects.

Can Listening to a Verbal Trauma Report Induce Intrusions? - Replication of a Randomized Trial

Recent evidence suggests that indirect verbal exposure to traumatic events can be sufficient to cause intrusions and other posttraumatic stress symptoms. In this study, we used a verbal trauma report to experimentally induce intrusions and a tactile task to manipulate the putative processes underlying intrusion development. Our findings indicate that the verbal report indeed induced intrusive recall. Moreover, the verbal report induced negative mood, state anxiety, and state dissociation, with mood and state dissociation predicting intrusion development. Additionally, the tactile task interfered with intrusion formation as indicated by the primary diary measure, but not the retrospective self-report. However, these results await further replication as this and previous trials suffered from limited statistical power. The findings support the reports by trauma therapists who experience secondary traumatization. They also challenge the assumption that all intrusions develop bottom-up from low-level sensory input via sensory representations. Future studies should explore differential processes for intrusion development based on their modality.

The retrograde effects of negative emotion on memory for conceptually related events: a registered report

Emotional events are often remembered better than neutral ones; however, emotion can also spill over and affect our memory for neutral experiences that precede an emotional event. Theories suggest that emotion can retroactively enhance memory for preceding neutral events that are considered high-priority while impairing memory for events deemed low-priority. However, the impact of conceptual relationships (i.e., semantic connections) between preceding neutral information and emotional events on memory for the preceding information has received little attention. This study investigated the influence of conceptual relatedness on the retroactive effects of emotion on memory. Participants sequentially encoded pairs of images that were high or low in conceptual relatedness, each comprising a neutral object followed by either a negative or neutral image. Participants returned the next day for a recognition memory assessment. The results indicated an interactive effect of emotion and conceptual relatedness on memory: In a "discovery" sample, memory was poorer for images preceding conceptually unrelated negative (vs. neutral) images, while the opposite pattern was seen for conceptually related images. In a "replication" sample, these effects were partially replicated, with the former impairment effect statistically observed but not the latter augmentation effect. Hence, conceptual relatedness affects how negative emotion influences memory.

Myths of trauma memory: on the oversimplification of effects of attention narrowing under stress

The present article addresses claims commonly made by prosecution witnesses in sexual assault trials: that attention narrows under stress, and that these attended aspects of the event are encoded in a way that ensures accuracy and resistance to fading and distortion. We provide evidence to contradict such claims. Given that what is encoded is largely the gist of one's interpretation of experience, we discuss the way in which attention and emotion can bias the interpretation of experience. We illustrate with issues of memory reports in cases of acquaintance rape, where the primary issue is the presence or absence of consent. We provide some specific illustrations concerning effects of emotion on interpretation of sexual consent. Finally, based on what is known regarding priming effects on memory retrieval and judgment, we conclude with discussion of the potential of some "trauma-informed" interviewing strategies to promote false memories (such as FETI: Forensic Experiential Trauma Interview).

The effects of eye movements on the content and characteristics of unpleasant autobiographical memories: an extended replication study

Experimental studies show that vividness and emotionality of aversive memories decrease after recall with eye movements. We aimed at replicating this finding. Relatedly, consistent with Conway's view that memory retrieval is constructive, we examined changes in the content of the memories. If eye movements render a memory less aversive, it may be avoided less, stimulating recall and increasing the opportunity to infer (contextual) details. Two experiments (N = 97 and N = 250) examined whether eye movements affect the number of central and peripheral memory details and characteristics. Female undergraduate students were randomly allocated to either eye movements with recall (EM) or recall only (RO). Before and after the experimental task, participants rated the vividness and emotionality, provided a detailed description and evaluated other memory characteristics. We replicated earlier findings that vividness (both experiments) and emotionality (experiment 2) were reduced more after EM compared to RO. However, conditions did not statistically significantly differ with respect to content details and other memory characteristics. Overall, findings support the idea that eye movements decrease the experience of the memory as vivid and emotional. Results are inconclusive regarding the idea that eye movements alter the number of recalled central and peripheral memory details.

Does context matter for memory? Testing the effectiveness of learning by imagining situated interactions with objects

Mounting evidence supports the efficacy of mental imagery for verbal information retention. Motor imagery, imagining oneself interacting physically with the object to be learned, emerges as an optimal form compared to less physically engaging imagery. Yet, when engaging in mental imagery, it occurs within a specific context that may affect imagined actions and consequently impact the mnemonic benefits of mental imagery. In a first study, participants were given instructions for incidental learning: mental rehearsal, visual imagery, motor imagery or situated motor imagery. The latter, which involved imagining physical interaction with an item within a coherent situation, produced the highest proportion of correct recalls. This highlights memory's role in supporting situated actions and offers the possibility for further developing the mnemonic potential of embodied mental imagery. Furthermore, item-level analysis showed that individuals who engaged in situated motor imagery remembered words primarily due to the sensorimotor characteristics of the words' referent. A second study investigating the role of inter-item distinctiveness in this effect failed to determine the extent to which the situational and motor elements need to be distinctive in order to be considered useful retrieval cues and produce an optimal memory performance.

Social evaluative stress enhances central detail memory, reduces false memory, and results in intrusive memories that last for days

Few studies have quantified what an individual remembers about a laboratory-controlled stressor. Here, we aimed to replicate previous work by using a modified version of the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) to quantify participant memory for a stressful experience. We also aimed to extend this work by quantifying false and intrusive memories that ensued. One hundred and seven participants were exposed to the TSST (stress) or the friendly TSST (f-TSST; no stress). The TSST required participants to deliver a ten-minute speech in front of two laboratory panel members as part of a mock job interview; the f-TSST required participants to casually converse with the panel members about their interests. In both conditions, the panel members interacted with (central) or did not interact with (peripheral) several objects sitting on a desk in front of them. The next day, participants' memory for the objects was assessed with recall and recognition tests. We also quantified participants' intrusive memories on Days 2, 4, 6, and 8. Stressed participants recalled more central objects and exhibited greater recognition memory, particularly for central objects, than controls. Stress also led to less false recall and more intrusive memories on Days 2 and 4. Consistent with previous work, these findings suggest that participants exhibit enhanced memory for the central details of a stressful experience; they also extend prior work by showing that participants exposed to a stressor have less false memories and experience intrusive memories for several days following the event. The modified TSST paradigm used here may be useful for researchers studying not only what participants remember about a stressful event but also their susceptibility to intrusive memory formation.

The underwood project: A virtual environment for eliciting ambiguous threat

Threatening environments can be unpredictable in many different ways. The nature of threats, their timing, and their locations in a scene can all be uncertain, even when one is acutely aware of being at risk. Prior research demonstrates that both temporal unpredictability and spatial uncertainty of threats elicit a distinctly anxious psychological response. In the paradigm presented here, we further explore other facets of ambiguous threat via an environment in which there are no concrete threats, predictable or otherwise, but which nevertheless elicits a building sense of danger. By incorporating both psychological research and principles of emotional game design, we constructed this world and then tested its effects in three studies. In line with our goals, participants experienced the environment as creepy and unpredictable. Their subjective and physiological response to the world rose and fell in line with the presentation of ambiguously threatening ambient cues. Exploratory analyses further suggest that this ambiguously threatening experience influenced memory for the virtual world and its underlying narrative. Together the data demonstrate that naturalistic virtual worlds can effectively elicit a multifaceted experience of ambiguous threat with subjective and cognitive consequences.

Development and validation of the COVID-19 Impact Scale in Australia

OBJECTIVE

The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted and continues to impact the health and well-being of Australian adults. However, there has been no instrument validated to comprehensively measure how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted adults in Australia across several domains (e.g. fear of COVID-19, attitudes towards vaccination, psychosocial impact of lockdowns).The current study conducted a rigorous psychometric process to develop and validate an instrument to measure the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia, the COVID-19 Impact Scale (CIS).

METHOD

Data was obtained from the Australian population. Participants (N = 563) aged between 19 and 91 years (M = 54.50, SD = 16.16) provided online responses between June, 2021 and May, 2022. The majority of participants were female (60.9%), employed either full-time (37.7%) or part-time (22.0%), and had completed an undergraduate degree or higher (70.1%). An initial pool of 30 items was developed based on a review of the literature and input from a panel of experts including psychologists, epidemiologists, and public health experts, among others. The study used network psychometrics to examine the psychometric properties of: (1) item score distributions; (2) item redundancy; (3) dimensionality; (4) model fit; (5) measurement invariance; (6) reliability; and (7) criterion validity.

RESULTS

Following an evaluation of items for ceiling/floor effects and redundancy, the final CIS network model included eighteen nodes and displayed a three-dimensional structure. The three communities of "Fear" (consisting of three nodes; ω = 0.82), "Attitudes" (consisting of ten nodes; ω = 0.89), and "Ill-being" (consisting of five nodes; ω = 0.79) displayed adequate reliability. The evaluation of model fit indicated a good fit of the network model (RMSEA = 0.047; CFI =0.98).

CONCLUSION

The instrument is available to be used by Australian researchers and implemented to evaluate public policies, adapted for future pandemics, or used internationally.

Higher judgements of learning for emotional words: processing fluency or memory beliefs?

Previous research has shown that emotionally-valenced words are given higher judgements of learning (JOLs) than are neutral words. The current study examined potential explanations for this emotional salience effect on JOLs. Experiment 1 replicated the basic emotionality/JOL effect. In Experiments 2A and 2B, we used pre-study JOLs and assessed memory beliefs qualitatively, finding that, on average, participants believed that positive and negative words were more memorable than neutral words. Experiment 3 utilised a lexical decision task, resulting in lower reaction times (RTs) for positive words than for neutral words, but equivalent RTs for negative and neutral words, suggesting that processing fluency may partially account for higher JOLs for positive words, but not for negative words. Finally, we conducted a series of moderation analyses in Experiment 4 which assessed the relative contributions of fluency and beliefs to JOLs by measuring both factors in the same participants, showing that RTs made no significant contribution to JOLs for either positive or negative words. Our findings suggest that although positive words may be more fluently processed than neutral words, memory beliefs are the primary factor underlying higher JOLs for both positive and negative words.

Using emotion to guide decisions: the accuracy and perceived value of emotional intensity forecasts

Forecasts about future emotion are often inaccurate, so why do people rely on them to make decisions? People may forecast some features of their emotional experience better than others, and they may report relying on forecasts that are more accurate to make decisions. To test this, four studies assessed the features of emotion people reported forecasting to make decisions about their careers, education, politics, and health. In Study 1, graduating medical students reported relying more on forecast emotional intensity than frequency or duration to decide how to rank residency programs as part of the process of being matched with a program. Similarly, participants reported relying more on forecast emotional intensity than frequency or duration to decide which universities to apply to (Study 2), which presidential candidate to vote for (Study 3), and whether to travel as Covid-19 rates declined (Study 4). Studies 1 and 3 also assessed forecasting accuracy. Participants forecast emotional intensity more accurately than frequency or duration. People make better decisions when they can anticipate the future. Thus, people's reports of relying on forecast emotional intensity to guide life-changing decisions, and the greater accuracy of these forecasts, provide important new evidence of the adaptive value of affective forecasts.

Aging alters the details recollected from emotional narratives

Although it is known that aging impairs episodic memory, the precise effect of aging on emotional memory is not fully understood. In this study, younger and older adults listened to narratives that contained general and emotional (positive, negative, or neutral) details as they viewed related images. When participants later recalled the narratives, both age groups remembered more emotional details from the negative than the positive or neutral narratives. Interestingly, the enhanced recall for the negative narratives came with a reduced ability to remember the associated images for both younger and older adults. For all narrative types, older adults recalled a similar number of general but fewer emotional details than younger adults. Although there were no age-specific emotional effects, memory functioning of the older adults related to better recall of the positive narratives and associated images. These results provide insight into the similarities and differences in how younger and older adults encode and retrieve complex emotional memories.

Emotional scene remembering: A combination of disturbing and facilitating effects of emotion?

An emotion-induced memory trade-off effect is frequently reported when participants have to memorize complex items that include both neutral and emotional features. This bias corresponds to better remembering of central emotional information accompanied by poor performance related to neutral background information. Although the trade-off effect has been mainly associated with attentional bias toward emotional content, findings suggest that other non-attentional cognitive processes could also be involved. The aim of this work was to assess whether emotional effects would be reported apart from their influence on attentional processing in an immediate delay memory task. Three studies were conducted. In Study 1, manipulation of the diffusion quality of emotional content allowed us to select focal emotional pictures vs. diffuse emotional pictures, which prevented attentional focus. The two studies that followed consisted of a recognition task of low- and high-complexity pictures in which we used partial visual cues during the test that could display either the emotional elements (i.e., central patch cues, Study 2) or the peripheral elements (i.e., peripheral patch cues, Study 3) of the focal emotional pictures. Results from Studies 2 and 3 replicated traditional trade-off effects only for high-complexity pictures. In addition, diffuse emotional pictures were associated with lower memory performance than were neutral pictures, suggesting that emotion features could both disturb and enhance (via their attentional effect) encoding processes.

The power of negative and positive episodic memories

The power of episodic memories is that they bring a past moment into the present, providing opportunities for us to recall details of the experiences, reframe or update the memory, and use the retrieved information to guide our decisions. In these regards, negative and positive memories can be especially powerful: Life’s highs and lows are disproportionately represented in memory, and when they are retrieved, they often impact our current mood and thoughts and influence various forms of behavior. Research rooted in neuroscience and cognitive psychology has historically focused on memory for negative emotional content. Yet the study of autobiographical memories has highlighted the importance of positive emotional memories, and more recently, cognitive neuroscience methods have begun to clarify why positive memories may show powerful relations to mental wellbeing. Here, we review the models that have been proposed to explain why emotional memories are long-lasting (durable) and likely to be retrieved (accessible), describing how in overlapping—but distinctly separable—ways, positive and negative memories can be easier to retrieve, and more likely to influence behavior. We end by identifying potential implications of this literature for broader topics related to mental wellbeing, education, and workplace environments.

Emotional valence and the types of information provided by children in forensic interviews

BACKGROUND

Emotions can powerfully affect memory retrieval although this effect has seldom been studied in everyday contexts.

OBJECTIVE

This study aimed to explore the association between children's verbal emotional expressions and the type of information reported during forensic interviews.

PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING

The sample included 198 interviews with 4- to 14-year-old (M = 9.36, SD = 2.37) alleged victims of repeated physical abuse perpetrated by family members conducted using the Revised NICHD Protocol which emphasizes a supportive interviewing style.

METHODS

Interview videos were transcribed and each conversational turn was coded to reflect the amount and type of children's verbal emotional expressions, forensic information provided, interviewers' demeanor, and type of question asked.

RESULTS

The verbal expression of negative emotions was positively associated with the production of more central details (β = 0.29, SE = 0.05, p < 0.001) and peripheral details (β = 0.66, SE = 0.07, p < 0.001), while the verbal expression of positive emotions was correlated with peripheral details (β = 0.29, SE = 0.15, p = 0.047). The verbal expression of negative emotions was associated with the production of more specific details (β = 0.73, SE = 0.06, p < 0.001]) and less generic information (β = -0.39, SE = 0.18, p = 0.029) whereas positive emotions were associated only with increased specific information (β = 0.28, SE = 0.12, p = 0.025).

CONCLUSIONS

These findings highlight how emotional expression, especially of negative emotions, enhances the quantity and quality of children's reports in forensic contexts.

Simulating the best and worst of times: the powers and perils of emotional simulation

We are remarkably capable of simulating events that we have never experienced. These simulated events often paint an emotional picture to behold, such as the best and worst possible outcomes that we might face. This review synthesises dispersed literature exploring the role of emotion in simulation. Drawing from work that suggests that simulations can influence our preferences, decision-making, and prosociality, we argue for a critical role of emotion in informing the consequences of simulation. We further unpack burgeoning evidence suggesting that the effects of emotional simulation transcend the laboratory. We propose avenues by which emotional simulation may be harnessed for both personal and collective good in applied contexts. We conclude by offering important future directions.

The influence of emotional salience on gaze behavior in low and high trait empathy: an exploratory eye-tracking study

Previous studies have shown that situational factors like emotional salience are associated with higher subjective levels of state empathy. The present eye-tracking study explored whether gaze behavior varies as a function of emotional salience between individuals with low and high self-reported trait empathy. In a between-subjects design, we presented three social scene images in the context of different emotion conditions (Scene 1: neutral versus positive; Scene 2: neutral versus negative; Scene 3: positive versus negative) and assessed the dwell times of individuals with low versus high self-reported empathy (measured with the Toronto Empathy Questionnaire; TEQ). Analyses revealed that whereas low- and high-TEQ participants differed in their gaze behavior after receiving neutral information, they did not differ after receiving positive or negative information. Our preliminary results suggest that gaze behavior may be more indicative of self-reported trait empathy in situations with low emotional salience than in situations with high emotional salience.

Emotional Modulation of Episodic Memory in School-Age Children and Adults: An Event-Related Potential Study

The Emotional Enhancement of Memory (EEM) has been well-demonstrated in adults, but less is known about EEM in children. The present study tested the impact of emotional valence of pictures on episodic memory using behavioral and neurophysiological measures. Twenty-six 8- to 11-year-old children were tested and compared to 30 young adults. Both groups participated in pictures' intentional encoding tasks while event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded, followed by immediate free recall tasks. Behavioral results revealed a general EEM in free recall performances in both groups, along with a negativity effect in children. ERP responses revealed a particular sensitivity to negative pictures in children with a late emotion effect at anterior clusters, as well as a greater successful encoding effect for emotional pictures compared to neutral ones. For adults, the emotion effect was more pronounced for positive pictures across all time windows from the centro-parietal to the frontal part, and localized in the left hemisphere. Positive pictures also elicited a greater successful encoding effect at anterior clusters in adults. By combining behavioral and neurophysiological measures to assess the EEM in children compared with adults, our study provides new knowledge concerning the interaction between emotional and memory processes during development.

Better memory for emotional sources? A systematic evaluation of source valence and arousal in source memory

Emotion-enhanced memory (EEM) describes the robust memory advantage of emotional over non-emotional stimuli. While extensively investigated with emotional items, it is unclear whether the EEM effect extends to source memory for a neutral item's emotional context. In two pre-registered studies, we systematically manipulated source valence (positive, negative) between participants and source arousal (high, low, neutral-low) within participants. In Experiment 1 (lab study, N = 80), we used emotional sound sources and presented them together with neutral pictures as items. In Experiment 2 (online study, N = 172), we used emotional background pictures with superimposed neutral item words to similarly manipulate source emotionality. Multinomial model-based analysis showed no general effects of valence or arousal on source memory across both experiments. Source memory was impaired for the negative high-arousing source in Experiment 1 but this did not replicate in Experiment 2. Altogether, we conclude that there are no memory-enhancing effects of source emotionality (valence, arousal, or any specific combination thereof) on source memory, dissociating emotionality effects between source and item memory. Additionally, we propose that material-dependent influences carry more weight if the used emotional material is limited in number, as is the case in the standard source-monitoring paradigm employing few sources only.

The Peacock Fallacy: Art as a Veblenian Signal

The fact that world-over people seem inexplicably motivated to allocate time and effort to apparently useless cultural practices, like the arts, has led several evolutionary scholars to suggest that these might be costly Zahavian signals correlated with genetic fitness, such as the infamous peacock's tail. In this paper, I review the fundamental arguments of the hypothesis that art evolved and serves as a costly Zahavian signal. First, I look into the hypothesis that humans exert mate choice for indirect benefits and argue that the data supports mate choice for direct benefits instead. Second, I argue that art practice may well be a costly signal, however not necessarily related to good genes. Third, I suggest that Thorstein Veblen's original concept of conspicuous signals as social tools to obtain and convey prestige provides a better account than the Zahavian model for the evolution and function of art in society. As a Veblenian signal, art could still have many of the effects suggested for visual art as a Zahavian signal, except not for the indirect benefits of optimal offspring, but for the direct benefits of acquiring and conveying social status.

When non-salient information becomes salient in conversational memory: Collaboration shapes the effects of emotion and self-production

People's memory of what was said and who said what during dialogue plays a central role in mutual comprehension and subsequent adaptation. This article outlines that well-established effects in conversational memory such as the self-production and the emotional effects actually depend on the nature of the interaction. We specifically focus on the impact of the collaborative nature of the interaction, comparing participants' conversational memory in non-collaborative and collaborative interactive settings involving interactions between two people (i.e., dialogue). The findings reveal that the amplitude of these conversational memory effects depends on the collaborative vs. non-collaborative nature of the interaction. The effects are attenuated when people have the opportunity to collaborate because information that remained non-salient in the non-collaborative condition (neutral and partner-produced words) became salient in the collaborative condition to a level similar to otherwise salient information (emotional and self-produced words). We highlight the importance of these findings in the study of dialogue and conversational memory.

Developing and conducting appreciative inquiry interviews

BACKGROUND

The appreciative inquiry (AI) interview follows a specific format and needs to be planned and developed before implementation. AI questions are designed to draw on the interviewee's experiences, commencing with general questioning and progressing to more focused questioning.

AIM

To explain how to plan and undertake AI interviews, and to discuss issues that nurse researchers might encounter.

DISCUSSION

This article is based on the first author's experience of undertaking an AI doctoral study. The primary method of collecting data for the study was AI interviews. The more focused questioning related to participants' experiences of positive actions or behaviours. Although questioning was positive in nature and participant-centric, conducting the interviews was more problematic than the first author anticipated. Some participants struggled to recall positive memories to share.

CONCLUSION

The unexpected response to the interview questions required the first author to examine her practices, as well as beliefs and judgements relating to AI. This reflexivity assisted in implementing changes to the study's process, resulting in a more positive experience for her and the participants.

IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE

Researchers using the AI interview require the capacity to be self-critical and change the process if necessary to enrich the outcome.

Relationship Between Item and Source Memory: Explanation of Connection-Strength Model

The controversy in the relationship between item memory and source memory is a focus of episodic memory. Some studies show the trade-off between item memory and source memory, some show the consistency between them, and others show the independence between them. This review attempts to point out the connection-strength model, implying the different types and strengths of the important role of the item-source connections in the relationship between item memory and source memory, which is based on the same essence in the unified framework. The logic of the model is that when item memory and source memory share the same or relevant connection between item and source, they positively connect, or they are independently or negatively connected. This review integrates empirical evidence from the domains of cognition, cognitive neuroscience, and mathematical modeling to validate our hypothesis.

A matter of time: how does emotion influence temporal aspects of remembering?

Spatiotemporal context is an intrinsic aspect of episodic memory. Although a large literature has demonstrated that emotion enhances episodic memory, less research has considered whether and how emotion affects memory for the timing of an experience, despite theoretical and practical importance. In this review, we bridge three heavily researched cognitive domains - memory, emotion, and time - by discussing findings from a burgeoning literature on their intersection. We identify and review two broad ways in which memory for time has been conceptualised in the emotional memory literature, namely (1) memory for relative aspects of event timing ("when" an event detail occurred), which includes studies of temporal-order and source memory; and (2) memory for the time that elapsed during an event ("how long"), which includes studies of retrospective duration estimation. Emerging trends demonstrate that although temporal-order memory can be impaired or enhanced by emotion depending on study demands, temporal source memory, instead, is usually enhanced. Studies of duration memory show that the remembered duration of negative experiences is dilated, but it is less clear how duration memory is affected for positive events. These findings are considered under the lens of broader emotional memory literature theories, and directions for future research are proposed.

Transfer of negative valence in an episodic memory task

Emotion can color what we perceive and subsequently remember in myriad ways. Indeed, it is well established that emotion enhances some aspects of memory, while impairing others. For example, a number of recent episodic memory studies show that emotion-particularly negative emotion-weakens associative memory, including item-item associations. Other literature shows that emotion biases our later attitudes and preferences. That is, the coincident pairing of a negative stimulus with a neutral one can reduce one's preference for that neutral stimulus upon subsequent encounter-a 'transfer of valence' effect. In an effort to connect these two phenomena, here we ask if and under what circumstances they co-occur. Across multiple experiments, we show that negative emotion impairs associative memory for item-item pairings, in accordance with prior work. We also show a transfer of valence effect in this paradigm, such that items paired with negative versus neutral stimuli are subsequently rated as less pleasant. Our data further show that transfer of valence is contingent on episodic memory. These findings highlight the complexity and multifaceted nature of emotional effects on memory.

Self-Disclosure to a Robot: Only for Those Who Suffer the Most

Social robots may become an innovative means to improve the well-being of individuals. Earlier research has shown that people easily self-disclose to a social robot, even in cases where it was unintended by the designers. We report on an experiment considering self-disclosing in a diary journal or to a social robot after negative mood induction. An off-the-shelf robot was complemented with our in-house developed AI chatbot, which could talk about ‘hot topics’ after training it with thousands of entries on a complaint website. We found that people who felt strongly negative after being exposed to shocking video footage benefited the most from talking to our robot, rather than writing down their feelings. For people less affected by the treatment, a confidential robot chat or writing a journal page did not differ significantly. We discuss emotion theory in relation to robotics and possibilities for an application in design (the emoji-enriched ‘talking stress ball’). We also underline the importance of otherwise disregarded outliers in a data set of therapeutic nature.

The Influence of Stimuli Valence and Arousal on Spatio-Temporal Representation of a Route

This study assesses the influence of valence and arousal of element/landmarks along a route on the spatio-temporal representation of the route itself. Participants watched a movie of a virtual route containing landmarks with high arousal and positive (HP) or negative valence (HN), or landmarks with low arousal and positive (LP) or negative valence (LN). Afterwards, they had to (a) imagine walking distances between landmarks, (b) indicate the position of the landmarks along the route, (c) judge the spatial and temporal length of the route, and (d) draw the route. Results showed that the tasks were differentially influenced by the valence and arousal levels. Specifically, participants were more accurate in representing distances between positive, rather than negative, landmarks and in localizing positive high arousing landmarks. Moreover, the high arousing landmarks improved performance at the route drawing task. Finally, participants in the negative and low arousing conditions judged the route as being metrically and temporally longer than participants in positive and high arousing conditions. These results are interpreted in the light of theories about the effects of emotions on memory processes and the “feelings-as-information” theory. In brief, the results support the idea that representations of a route reflect a combination of cognitive and emotional processes.

Efecto De La Personalidad Sobre El Recobro De Actos Violentos En Testigos

En el campo de investigación en psicología del testimonio se ha estudiado el efecto de múltiples factores psicológicos sobre la cantidad de detalles, la reproducción de conversaciones y las falsas memorias en el recobro de eventos autobiográficos. El objetivo de esta investigación es identificar el efecto de la personalidad sobre el recobro de testigos presenciales de actos con violencia verbal y no verbal. Participaron 40 estudiantes de psicología divididos en cuatro grupos en términos de sus puntuaciones altas en los estilos de personalidad histriónica (Grupo 1), esquizoide (Grupo 2), obsesiva-compulsiva (Grupo 3), y un grupo control con puntuaciones promedio en dichos estilos (Grupo 4). Mediante una situación experimental se presentó a los participantes un video con contenido de violencia verbal o física; posteriormente se realizó una tarea de recobro libre y se evaluó la cantidad de detalles, la reproducción de conversaciones y las falsas memorias. Los resultados mostraron que los participantes del Grupo 1 evidenciaron recobros pobres en detalles, con deficiente precisión en la reproducción de conversaciones y ausencia de falsas memorias, mientras que los participantes de los grupos 2 y 3 recobraron la información con mayor cantidad de detalles y mayor precisión en la reproducción de conversaciones, aunque el Grupo 3 obtuvo la mayor cantidad de falsas memorias. Estos hallazgos son discutidos en términos de la relación entre la forma en que se recobra la información en los procesos de Memoria Autobiográfica en escenarios jurídicos, y que hay otros constructos asociados como la personalidad y la emoción que pueden influir en el testimonio. Palabras Clave: Psicología del testimonio, recobro, personalidad, memoria autobiográfica, testimonio, contenido violento.

Remembering facts versus feelings in the wake of political events

Amid rising political polarisation, inaccurate memory for facts and exaggerated memories of grievances can drive individuals and groups further apart. We assessed whether people with more accurate memories of the facts concerning political events were less susceptible to bias when remembering how events made them feel. Study 1 assessed participants' memories concerning the 2016 U.S. presidential election (N = 571), and included 33 individuals with Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM). Study 2 assessed participants' memories concerning the 2018 referendum on abortion in Ireland (N = 733). Participants rated how happy, angry, and scared they felt days after these events. Six months later, they recalled their feelings and factual information. In both studies, participants overestimated how angry they had felt but underestimated happiness and fear. Adjusting for importance, no association was found between the accuracy of memory for facts and feelings. Accuracy in remembering facts was predicted by media exposure. Accuracy in remembering feelings was predicted by consistency over time in feelings and appraisals about past events. HSAM participants in Study 1 remembered election-related facts better than others, but not their feelings. Thus, having a good grasp of the facts did not protect against bias in remembering feelings about political events.

Cognitive-emotional processing in alexithymia: an integrative review

Alexithymia is a multifaceted personality construct characterised by difficulties identifying one's feelings and distinguishing them from bodily sensations, difficulties describing one's feelings to others, and an externally oriented cognitive style. Over the past 25 years, a burgeoning body of research has examined how alexithymia moderates processing at the cognition-emotion interface. We review the findings in five domains: attention, appraisals, memory, language, and behaviours. The preponderance of studies linked alexithymia with deficits in emotion processing, which was apparent across all domains, except behaviours. All studies on behaviours and a proportion of studies in other domains demonstrated emotional over-responding. Analysis at the facet level revealed deficits in memory and language that are primarily associated with externally oriented thinking, while over-responding was most often linked to difficulty identifying feelings and difficulty describing feelings. The review also found evidence for contextual modulation: The pattern of deficits and over-responding was not restricted to emotional contexts but also occurred in neutral contexts, and in some circumstances, emotional over-responding in alexithymia was beneficial. Taken together, this review highlights alexithymia as a central personality dimension in the interplay between cognition and emotion.

Personal relative deprivation impairs ability to filter out threat-related distractors from visual working memory

The literature has indicated that personal relative deprivation (PRD) results in anxiety disorders. Given that some cognitive models propose that attention bias toward a threat causes and maintains anxiety, relatively deprived individuals may have difficulty gating threat from working memory. To test this hypothesis, this study investigated the influence of PRD on the filtering ability of happy, angry, and neutral facial distractors from visual working memory using electroencephalography (EEG). Participants were randomly assigned to a PRD (n = 24) or a non-PRD group (n = 24). Filtering ability was reflected by comparing the contralateral delay activity (CDA) amplitude for one-target, one-target-one-distractor, and two-targets conditions. The CDA was measured as the difference in mean amplitudes between activity in the hemispheres contralateral and ipsilateral to the to-be-remembered information. Results indicated that individuals in the PRD group showed a reduced ability to filter out neutral and angry facial distractors, as reflected by similar CDA amplitudes for one-target-one-distractor and two-targets conditions for both angry and neutral distractors in the PRD group. However, PRD did not impair the ability to filter out happy facial distractors, as reflected by similar CDA amplitudes for one-target-one-distractor and one-target conditions for happy distractors in the PRD group. As neutral faces might then be taken as potentially threatening information by relatively deprived individuals, these results support the hypothesis that relatively deprived individuals might have difficulty filtering out threat-related information.

Emotional context effects on memory accuracy for neutral information

Despite decades of study, it remains unclear how emotional contexts influence memory for non-emotional information. In two studies, we previously found memory accuracy for neutral information encoded in an emotional context differed by valence. Specifically, neutral images encoded in a negative context were remembered with similar accuracy as those encoded in a non-emotional context, and neutral images encoded in a positive context were remembered with less accuracy than a non-emotional context. This Registered Report contains a third study to replicate our original results and allow for direct comparison between the negative and positive encoding conditions. People in the positive condition showed decreased memory accuracy, but this effect was very small in size and only significant when compared to the neutral condition. Given the lack of difference between negative and neutral conditions, effects of emotion on memory are not only a function of emotional arousal. At the same time, given the nonsignificant, small difference between positive and negative conditions, effects of emotion on memory are also not solely attributable to valence. This series of studies represents a step towards re-examining the tenet that emotion enhances memory unless the experience elicits sufficiently high arousal levels such that memory is impaired.

Levels of Processing Affect Perceptual Features in Visual Associative Memory

The levels of processing (LOP) account has inspired thousands of studies with verbal material. The few studies investigating levels of processing with nonverbal stimuli used images with nameable objects that, like meaningful words, lend themselves to semantic processing. Thus, nothing is known about the effects of different levels of processing on basic visual perceptual features, such as color. Across four experiments, we tested 187 participants to investigate whether the LOP framework also applies to basic perceptual features in visual associative memory. For Experiments 1 and 2, we developed a paradigm to investigate recognition memory for associations of basic visual features. Participants had to memorize object–color associations (Experiment 1) and fractal–color associations (Experiment 2, to suppress verbalization). In Experiments 3 and 4, we extended our account to cued recall. All experiments revealed reliable LOP effects for basic perceptual features in visual associative memory. Our findings demonstrate that the LOP account is more universal than the current literature suggests.

Memory and comprehension of narrative versus expository texts: A meta-analysis

We acquire a lot of information about the world through texts, which can be categorized at the broadest level into two primary genres: narratives and exposition. Stories and essays differ across a variety of dimensions, including structure and content, with numerous theories hypothesizing that stories are easier to understand and recall than essays. However, empirical work in this area has yielded mixed results. To synthesize research in this area, we conducted a meta-analysis of experiments in which memory and/or comprehension of narrative and expository texts was investigated. Based on over 75 unique samples and data from more than 33,000 participants, we found that stories were more easily understood and better recalled than essays. Moreover, this result was robust, not influenced by the inclusion of a single effect-size or single study, and not moderated by various study characteristics. This finding has implications for any domain in which acquiring and retaining information is important.

O Efeito de Carga Emocional e Intervalo de Retenção na Memória de Testemunhas Oculares

Resumo Presenciar um crime é uma situação de grande estresse e com forte carga emocional, fatores diretamente relacionados à qualidade do relato de testemunhas oculares. Em dois experimentos, participantes assistiram a eventos com diferentes cargas emocionais (neutro, assalto ou assassinato) e forneceram seus relatos após diferentes intervalos de retenção (teste imediato, 7 dias, 14 dias ou 21 dias). Os resultados mostraram que a carga emocional não teve efeito na memória de testemunhas para aspectos do crime e características do criminoso. O evento com maior carga emocional teve um efeito benéfico na memória após um intervalo de 7 dias, mas tal efeito não ocorreu em intervalos mais longos. Implicações teóricas e práticas relacionadas à interpretação do relato de testemunhas são discutidas.

Investigating the replicability and boundary conditions of the mnemonic advantage for disgust

Research has demonstrated that people remember emotional information better than neutral information. However, such research has almost exclusively defined emotion in terms of valence and arousal. Discrete emotions may affect memory above and beyond such dimensions, with recent research indicating that disgusting information is better remembered than frightening information. We initially sought to determine whether participants are sensitive to the effects of discrete emotions when predicting their future memory performance. Participants in Experiment 1 were more confident in their memory for emotional (both frightening and disgusting) images relative to neutral images, but confidence did not differ between frightening and disgusting images. However, because we did not replicate the mnemonic advantage of disgust, subsequent experiments were concerned with testing the replicability of this effect. Because metamemorial judgments sometimes eliminate memory effects, participants in Experiment 2 did not make such judgments. Even so, the effect did not replicate. The disgust advantage was ultimately replicated in Experiment 3, where participants completed a secondary task at encoding. The disgust advantage is replicable but appears less robust than previously recognised. A single-paper meta-analysis indicated that the effect is more likely under divided attention, perhaps because the mechanisms which mediate disgust-memory are relatively automatic.