The developmental status of emotional memory in school-age children Open Access

Leventon, Jacqueline (2014)

Permanent URL: https://etd.library.emory.edu/concern/etds/wh246s35k?locale=en
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Abstract

From birth through adulthood, our lives are filled with emotion not only in day-to-day experience, but in pictures, stories, words, and of course, memories. As adults, we show better memory for emotional over neutral experiences. The effect is attributed to emotional arousal at encoding, and suggests a strong integration of emotion and memory processes in adults. Children also experience and remember emotional events, yet it remains unclear how tightly connected emotion and memory processes are in development. That is, do children encode and remember emotional experience similarly to adults, or, is emotional experience separate from subsequent memory processes? In Study 1, event-related potential (ERP) and behavioral measures were used to assess 5- to 8-year-olds' encoding and subsequent recognition of negative, positive, and neutral scenes from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS). Across the sample, children demonstrated emotion effects in their ERPs to and ratings of the stimuli, with more robust emotion effects in older children (> 7.5 years). Further, emotion effects on recognition began to emerge for older but not younger children, suggesting that emotion and memory processes become more integrated in the school-age years. Measures of depressive symptomatology clarify the group pattern, suggesting that greater withdrawn/depressed behavior was associated with stronger ERP recognition responses to positive scenes and weaker ERP recognition responses to negative scenes. In Study 2, a reappraisal manipulation was used to examine the explanatory role of arousal at encoding on the enhancing effect of emotion on subsequent memory in 8-year-old girls. Children's ERPs indicated down-regulation of arousal for reappraised negative stimuli and subsequently reduced recognition of reappraised negative stimuli (in both ERPs and behavioral responses). The finding supports the integration of emotion and memory processes by middle childhood, as well as the explanatory role of arousal at encoding on the enhancing effect of emotion on subsequent memory. Together, the findings suggest developmental emergence of emotion effects on memory in the school-age years, and support the explanatory role of emotional arousal on subsequent memory.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents General Introduction …………………………………………………………………….. 1 Aim 1: Examine the status of emotional memory in school-age children …….… 7 Aim 2: Examine the relative role of individual differences in emotion processing on memory for emotional stimuli in development ………………………………. 9 Aim 3: Examine emotional memory as a factor of directed emotion regulation during the encoding of emotional stimuli …………………………………..….. 11 Study 1: Emotion processing and memory in school-age children …………………….. 14 Introduction …………………………………………………………………….. 14 Method ……………………………………………………………………...….. 20 Results ………………………………………………………………………..… 30 Discussion …………………………………………………………………….... 29 References ……………………………………………………………………… 43 Footnotes ……………………………………………………………………….. 48 Tables …………………………………………………………………………... 49 Figures ………………………………………………………………………….. 61 Study 2: Emotion regulation during the encoding of emotional stimuli: Effects on subsequent memory ……………………………………………………………………. 77 Introduction ………………………………………………………………….… 77 Method ……………………………………………………………………….… 83 Results …………………………………………………………….……………. 93 Discussion …………………………………………………………………….. 101 References …………………………………………………………………….. 106 Footnotes ……………………………………………………………………… 110 Tables …………………………………………………………………………. 111 Figures ………………………………………………………………………… 120 Appendix A …………………………………………………………………… 136 Appendix A …………………………………………………………………………… 150 Figures ………………………………………………………………………… 154 General Discussion ………………………...…………………………………………. 158 References …………………………………………………………………………….. 165   List of Tables Study 1 Table 1. Trial counts per condition for each age group at encoding. Table 2. Trial counts per condition for each age group at recognition. Table 3. Descriptive statistics for mean amplitude responses at encoding across and within windows in the posterior, central, and frontal clusters (panels a, b, and c, respectively). Data within the posterior cluster are separated by age group: younger (< 7.5 years) and older participants (> 7.5 years). Table 4. Descriptive statistics for parent-reported depressed symptomatology (from the CBCL) and temperament (from the CBQ). Table 5. Correlation statistics for ERP recognition in the posterior cluster and parent- reported temperament and depressive symptomatology. Table 6. Correlation statistics for ERP recognition in the central cluster and parent- reported temperament and depressive symptomatology. Table 7. Correlation statistics for ERP recognition in the frontal cluster and parent- reported temperament and depressive symptomatology. Study 2 Table 1. Trial counts by condition for pre-manipulation, post-manipulation (immediate), and post-manipulation (delayed). Table 2. Trial counts by condition for recognition. Table 3. Descriptive statistics for pre-manipulation emotion effects in posterior, central, and frontal clusters (mean amplitude measure across and within each window). Table 4. Descriptive statistics for emotion effect post-manipulation (immediate) in central cluster (mean amplitude measure at each window, collapsed by hemisphere for first 3 windows, and left hemisphere only for fourth window). Table 5. Descriptive statistics for emotion effects post-manipulation (immediate) at frontal cluster (mean amplitude across windows and hemispheres). Table 6. Descriptive statistics for emotion effect post-manipulation (delayed) at all clusters (mean amplitude collapsed over window and hemisphere). Table 7. Descriptive statistics for recognition effects in negative condition (mean amplitude measure by cluster). Table 8. Descriptive statistics for mean amplitude measure in positive condition separated by cluster (windows reported separately for posterior cluster, and collapsed over window for central and frontal clusters).   List of Figures Study 1 Figure 1. Depiction of electrode layout following the 10-5 system with marked clusters used in analysis. Figure 2. Depiction of old/new decision screens (position counterbalanced across participants). Figure 3. Depiction of confidence ratings screens for a) girls and b) boys. Figure 4. Depiction of Self-Assessment Manikin for rating a) valence and b) arousal. Figure 5. Valence and arousal ratings from the SAM. Error bars represent ± 1 SEM. Figure 6. Grand averaged waveforms at encoding from older participants at posterior, central, and frontal clusters, panels a, b, and c, respectively (positive is plotted in blue, neutral in black, and negative in red). Figure 7. Grand averaged waveforms at encoding from younger participants at posterior, central, and frontal clusters, panels a, b, and c, respectively (positive is plotted in blue, neutral in black, and negative in red). Figure 8. Corrected recognition scores plotted by emotion condition for a) older and b) younger children. Error bars represent ± 1 SEM. Figure 9. Grand averaged waveforms at recognition from older participants at posterior, central, and frontal clusters, panels a, b, and c, respectively (positive is plotted in blue, neutral in black, and negative in red; ‘old' is in darker shades, ‘new' in lighter shades). Figure 10. Grand averaged waveforms at recognition from younger participants at posterior, central, and frontal clusters, panels a, b, and c, respectively (positive is plotted in blue, neutral in black, and negative in red; ‘old' is in darker shades, ‘new' in lighter shades). Study 2 Figure 1. Depiction of electrode layout. Short dashes mark posterior clusters, solid lines mark central clusters, and long dashes mark frontal clusters. Figure 2. Depiction of old/new decision screen. Figure 3. Depiction of confidence ratings screen. Figure 4. Depiction of Self-Assessment Manikin for rating a) valence and b) arousal. Figure 5. Participants' a) valence and b) arousal ratings from the SAM (error bars represent ± 1 standard error). Figure 6. Waveforms plotted by cluster illustrating emotion effects pre- manipulation (posterior, central, frontal, in panels a, b, and c, respectively; red = negative, black = neutral old, blue = positive). Figure 7. Waveforms plotted by cluster illustrating post-manipulation-immediate emotion effects (posterior, central, frontal, in panels a, b, and c, respectively; red = negative matching, orange = negative reappraisal, black = neutral old, blue = positive matching, green = positive reappraisal). Figure 8. Waveforms plotted by cluster illustrating post-manipulation-delayed emotion effects (posterior, central, frontal, in panels a, b, and c, respectively; red = negative matching, orange = negative reappraisal, black = neutral old, blue = positive matching, green = positive reappraisal). Figure 9. Participants' corrected recognition memory scores across all conditions (error bars represent ± 1 standard error). Figure 10. Waveforms plotted by cluster illustrating recognition data in the negative analysis (posterior, central, frontal, in panels a, b, and c, respectively; red = negative matching, orange = negative reappraisal, pink = negative new, black = neutral old, gray = neutral new). Figure 11. Waveforms plotted by cluster illustrating recognition data in the analysis of the positive condition (posterior, central, frontal, in panels a, b, and c, respectively; dark blue = positive matching, green = positive reappraisal, light blue = positive new, black = neutral old, gray = neutral new). Appendix A Figure 1. Grand averaged waveforms at encoding representing subsequent memory from younger participants at posterior, central, and frontal clusters, panels a, b, and c, respectively (positive is plotted in blue, neutral in black, and negative in red; ‘hit' is in darker shades, ‘miss' in lighter shades). Figure 2. Grand averaged waveforms at encoding representing subsequent memory from older participants at posterior, central, and frontal clusters, panels a, b, and c, respectively (positive is plotted in blue, neutral in black, and negative in red; ‘hit' is in darker shades, ‘miss' in lighter shades).

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