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suggesting that greater withdrawn/depressed behavior was associated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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