University of Texas at Austin, Department of Psychiatry, Austin, TX, 78712, USA.
Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
Biol Psychol. 2019 Jul;145:134-141. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2019.05.001. Epub 2019 May 7.
It can be challenging to explain why certain mundane details circumstantial to an emotional event are nonetheless remembered long after the experience. Here, we examined how attention selectively shapes memory for neutral objects that happen to coincide with either an unexpected or anticipated emotional event. Pictures of neutral objects were presented for 2 s and terminated with either a high-intensity shock, a low-intensity shock, or no shock. Recognition memory was tested 24 -hs later in a surprise test. Results showed no effect of shock intensity on memory for attended objects when shocks were unpredictable (Experiment 1). Similarly, there was no effect of shock intensity for attended objects when shock delivery was signaled before the object appeared (Experiment 2). There was a reduction in memory for unattended objects paired with an anticipated high-intensity shock (Experiment 3). Finally, subjects recognized slightly more attended objects paired with a high-intensity shock if shock intensity was signaled one second after the object was encoded (Experiment 4). We conclude that simply pairing objects with high-intensity shocks is insufficient to drive episodic memory enhancements for neutral information. But anticipation of an impending source of arousal can induce bidirectional effects: attending to an impending emotional event interferes with encoding of neutral information, but encoding an object just prior to anticipation of an emotional event can sometimes benefit memory. Overall, these results highlight a complex interplay between arousal, attention, and anticipation on emotion-induced memory for neutral information.
解释为什么某些与情感事件相关的平凡细节，尽管在经历之后很久仍能被记住，这可能具有挑战性。在这里，我们研究了注意力如何选择性地塑造对中性物体的记忆，这些物体碰巧与意外或预期的情感事件同时发生。中性物体的图片呈现 2 秒，然后要么是高强度电击，要么是低强度电击，要么没有电击。在 24 小时后的惊喜测试中测试对这些物体的识别记忆。结果表明，当电击是不可预测的时候，电击强度对注意到的物体的记忆没有影响（实验 1）。同样，当物体出现之前就预告电击时，注意到的物体的记忆也不受电击强度的影响（实验 2）。当与预期的高强度电击配对的未注意到的物体时，记忆会减少（实验 3）。最后，如果在物体编码后一秒钟预告电击强度，那么与高强度电击配对的被试会识别出更多的注意到的物体（实验 4）。我们的结论是，仅仅将物体与高强度电击配对不足以引起对中性信息的情节记忆增强。但是，对即将到来的唤醒源的预期可以引起双向效应：对即将到来的情感事件的关注会干扰对中性信息的编码，但在预期情感事件之前对物体进行编码有时会有益于记忆。总的来说，这些结果强调了在中性信息的情绪诱导记忆中，唤醒、注意和预期之间的复杂相互作用。
