Department of Psychology, Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Cogn Emot. 2012;26(6):1143-52. doi: 10.1080/02699931.2011.642848. Epub 2012 Mar 12.
We used the remember-know procedure (Tulving, 1985 ) to test the behavioural expression of memory following indirect and direct forms of emotional processing at encoding. Participants (N=32) viewed a series of facial expressions (happy, fearful, angry, and neutral) while performing tasks involving either indirect (gender discrimination) or direct (emotion discrimination) emotion processing. After a delay, participants completed a surprise recognition memory test. Our results revealed that indirect encoding of emotion produced enhanced memory for fearful faces whereas direct encoding of emotion produced enhanced memory for angry faces. In contrast, happy faces were better remembered than neutral faces after both indirect and direct encoding tasks. These findings suggest that fearful and angry faces benefit from a recollective advantage when they are encoded in a way that is consistent with the predictive nature of their threat. We propose that the broad memory advantage for happy faces may reflect a form of cognitive flexibility that is specific to positive emotions.
我们使用了再认-熟悉程序（Tulving，1985）来测试在间接和直接的情绪加工条件下，记忆在行为上的表现。参与者（N=32）在观看一系列面部表情（高兴、恐惧、愤怒和中性）的同时，完成了间接（性别区分）或直接（情绪区分）的情绪加工任务。延迟一段时间后，参与者完成了一个令人惊讶的识别记忆测试。我们的结果表明，情绪的间接编码产生了对恐惧面孔的增强记忆，而情绪的直接编码则产生了对愤怒面孔的增强记忆。相比之下，在间接和直接编码任务后，高兴面孔的记忆都比中性面孔好。这些发现表明，当恐惧和愤怒的面孔以符合其威胁的预测性质的方式进行编码时，它们会受益于一种再认优势。我们提出，对高兴面孔的广泛记忆优势可能反映了一种对积极情绪特有的认知灵活性。
