Department of Psychology, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA.
Psychon Bull Rev. 2012 Dec;19(6):1128-34. doi: 10.3758/s13423-012-0315-x.
In the present study, we examined the role of attention in modulating the memory benefit of emotional arousal for same-valence word pair associations. To assess the role of attention either at encoding or at retrieval, participants studied lists of positive, neutral, and negative words pairs under full attention, divided attention at encoding, or divided attention at retrieval, and then were tested on the single words and on the associations between words. Consistent with past studies, memory accuracy was higher for emotional items than for neutral items, and no memory difference was observed across emotional arousal conditions for associations when encoding occurred under full attention. In contrast, memory accuracy was higher for emotionally arousing items and associations relative to neutral items when encoding occurred under divided attention. Finally, dividing attention at retrieval revealed similar effects across emotion conditions, suggesting that retrieval of emotional stimuli relative to neutral stimuli, unlike encoding, does not benefit from automatic processing. The discussion emphasizes the role of automatic processing during encoding in producing the benefit of emotionally enhanced memory, as well as the extent to which controlled attention is responsible for eliminating or reversing (relative to neutral materials) emotionally enhanced memory for associations. Additionally, the implications of the divided-attention-at-retrieval manipulation include consideration of the way in which emotional items may be consciously processed during encoding.
在本研究中，我们考察了注意在调节情绪唤醒对同价词对联想的记忆增益中的作用。为了评估注意在编码或提取过程中的作用，参与者在全注意、编码时分散注意或提取时分散注意的条件下学习正性、中性和负性词对列表，然后对单个单词和单词之间的联想进行测试。与过去的研究一致，情绪项目的记忆准确性高于中性项目，并且当编码在全注意下进行时，联想在不同的情绪唤醒条件下没有记忆差异。相比之下，当编码在分散注意下进行时，情绪唤起的项目和联想的记忆准确性高于中性项目。最后，在提取时分散注意揭示了情绪条件下的相似效应，表明与中性刺激相比，情绪刺激的提取并不像编码那样受益于自动处理。讨论强调了编码过程中自动处理在产生情绪增强记忆益处中的作用，以及控制注意力在消除或逆转（相对于中性材料）联想的情绪增强记忆方面的作用程度。此外，提取时分散注意的操作的含义包括考虑在编码过程中情绪项目如何被有意识地处理。
