Anderson Adam K, Wais Peter E, Gabrieli John D E
Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 3G3.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2006 Jan 31;103(5):1599-604. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0506308103. Epub 2006 Jan 24.
Emotional events are bestowed with special prominence in memory. This may reflect greater attention oriented to these events during encoding, and/or enhancement of memory consolidation after emotional events have passed. Here we show invoked emotional arousal results in a retrograde enhancement of long-term memory, determining what will later be remembered or forgotten. Subjects saw pictures of neutral faces and houses followed by emotionally arousing scenes at varying intervals. Self-reported emotional arousal responses predicted a retrograde enhancement of memory for preceding neutral events in a 1-week delayed recognition memory test. At longer picture-scene intervals, no enhancement was found, implicating a critical window in which emotional arousal must occur for retrograde memory enhancement. Postencoding manipulation of emotional arousal specifically enhanced conscious recollection rather than familiarity-based discrimination. An additional study revealed no retrograde enhancement for pictures preceding highly memorable, but nonarousing, distinctive scenes. These findings indicate an important role for emotional arousal in the postencoding enhancement of episodic memory consolidation.
情感事件在记忆中被赋予特殊的突出地位。这可能反映出在编码过程中对这些事件投入了更多关注，和/或在情感事件过后记忆巩固得到了增强。在此我们表明，引发的情绪唤醒会导致长期记忆的逆行增强，决定了之后哪些会被记住，哪些会被遗忘。受试者观看中性面孔和房屋的图片，之后在不同间隔时间观看引发情绪的场景。在一项为期1周的延迟识别记忆测试中，自我报告的情绪唤醒反应预示着对之前中性事件记忆的逆行增强。在图片与场景间隔时间更长时，未发现增强现象，这表明存在一个关键窗口，情绪唤醒必须在此窗口内发生才能实现逆行记忆增强。编码后对情绪唤醒的操控特别增强了有意识回忆，而非基于熟悉度的辨别。另一项研究表明，对于在非常难忘但不引发情绪的独特场景之前出现的图片，不存在逆行增强现象。这些发现表明情绪唤醒在情景记忆巩固的编码后增强中发挥着重要作用。
