Kulas Joseph F, Conger Judith C, Smolin James M
Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA.
J Anxiety Disord. 2003;17(1):103-13. doi: 10.1016/s0887-6185(02)00177-9.
The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of emotion on memory. It has been theorized that an attentional bias for emotional stimuli is a component of a variety of anxiety disorders. Previous tasks used to investigate this process, such as the modified Stroop task, may have contained confounds that limit conclusions that can be drawn. This study used a free recall memory task to clarify the effects of attentional biases on the processing of emotionally threatening material. Participants were screened on their reported fear of spiders and tested for their recall of "spider," and the word following it in a list. Participants, regardless of their spider fear classification, recalled the word "spider" at a much higher rate, and recalled the word following it at a much lower rate. Results of follow-up studies were consistent with the original findings.
本研究的目的是调查情绪对记忆的影响。从理论上来说，对情绪刺激的注意力偏向是多种焦虑症的一个组成部分。以前用于研究这一过程的任务，如改良的斯特鲁普任务，可能存在一些混淆因素，限制了能够得出的结论。本研究使用自由回忆记忆任务来阐明注意力偏向对处理情绪威胁性材料的影响。参与者根据他们报告的对蜘蛛的恐惧进行筛选，并测试他们对“蜘蛛”一词及其列表中后面一个单词的回忆。参与者无论其蜘蛛恐惧分类如何，对“蜘蛛”一词的回忆率都要高得多，而对其后面一个单词的回忆率则要低得多。后续研究的结果与最初的发现一致。
