Examining the Content of Recollected Emotional Memories Open Access

Abstract

Memory for emotionally arousing events is often stronger, more vivid, and is accompanied by a stronger sense recollection of the context of the event such as its associated thoughts and perceptual characteristics, relative to affectively neutral memories. This enhanced recollection occurs for both emotionally negative and positive events but is usually stronger for negative events. Influential recent theories of emotional memory have proposed that enhanced recollection for negative events is due to enhanced reinstatement in the brain of the sensory aspects (e.g., visual detail) during retrieval and increased binding or association of the emotional aspects of the event to its memory representation, leading to greater re-experiencing of emotion during retrieval. Based on these theories, the recollective content of retrieved negative emotional events should contain relatively more perceptual details and emotional responses. However, almost all studies of recollection during recognition memory tasks have failed to analyze the nature of recollective content. The one study that did analyze recollective content for emotional events only examined negative events, so the nature of recollective content for positive emotional events remains unknown. To address this gap, we used a standard measure, the Remember/Familiar recognition task, to assess recollection in the context of a recognition memory task for negative, positive, and neutral pictures, focusing on the types of recollective content that participants retrieved. As expected, recollection was greater for both negative and positive pictures, relative to neutral pictures. Our results were inconsistent with the prediction that recollection for negative pictures was associated with a significantly higher percentage of perceptual (or intrinsic) details compared to both positive and neutral pictures. However, in line with predictions, emotional responses were associated with recollection responses significantly more often for negative pictures compared to both positive and neutral pictures. These findings support the predictions of current theories of recollection for emotional events, suggesting that enhanced recollection of negative emotional events reflects increased encoding of emotional event properties.

Table of Contents

Introduction….……………………………………………..…………………………..……...……….…...….1

Methods……….…………………………………………..……………………………...…...…………...…....6

Participants…………………………...………………….……....…………………..........………....….......6

Materials………………………….….…………………………..…....…...………............………..…….....6

Design and Procedure………………...………………………………....….….........…..……….……….…7

Data Analysis…………….………...……………………………...………....…….……..........……...…....10

Results……………………….………………………………………………….………....…….…...…….…....12

Discussion………………….…………………………………………...……….……....……….……….……..16

References…………………….…………………………………………..…...….…...……………….….…....20

Tables and Figures.……......….……………………………………...………….…..…………………..…....25

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	Psychology
Degree	B.A.
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Psychology, Cognitive
Keyword	Recollective Content Memory Emotion
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Hamann, Stephan, Emory University
Committee Members	Kragel, Philip, Emory University Konner, Melvin, Emory University

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