Institut universitaire romand de Santé au Travail (Institute for Work and Health), University of Lausanne and University of Geneva, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Department of Psychiatry, Service of Old Age Psychiatry, Lausanne University Hospital, Prilly, Switzerland.
Scand J Psychol. 2020 Apr;61(2):183-194. doi: 10.1111/sjop.12593. Epub 2019 Nov 17.
Memory for affective events plays an important role in determining people's behavior and well-being. Its determinants are far from being completely understood. We investigated how recognition memory for affective pictures depends on pictures' motivational significance (valence and arousal), complexity (figure-ground compositions vs. scenes), and social content (pictures with people vs. without people) and on observers' age and gender. Younger, middle-aged, and older adults viewed 84 pictures depicting real-life situations. After a break, the participants viewed 72 pictures, half of which had been viewed previously and half of which were novel, and were asked to endorse whether each picture was novel or had been presented previously. Hits, false alarms, and overall performance (discrimination accuracy) were our dependent variables. The main findings were that, across participants, recognition memory was better for unpleasant than pleasant pictures and for pictures depicting people than pictures without people. Low-arousal pictures were more accurately recognized than high-arousal pictures, and this effect was significantly larger among middle-aged and older adults than younger adults. Recognition memory worsened across adulthood, and this decline was steeper among men than women. Middle-aged and older women outperformed their male counterparts. This study suggests that how well we are able to successfully discriminate previously seen pictorial stimuli from novel stimuli depends on several pictures' properties related to their motivational significance and content, and on observer's age and gender.
记忆在情感事件中起着重要的作用，决定着人们的行为和幸福感。其决定因素远未被完全理解。我们研究了识别情感图片记忆如何取决于图片的动机意义（效价和唤醒度）、复杂性（图形-背景构图与场景）和社会内容（有人物的图片与无人物的图片）以及观察者的年龄和性别。年轻、中年和老年成年人观看了 84 张描绘现实生活情景的图片。休息后，参与者观看了 72 张图片，其中一半是之前看过的，一半是新的，并被要求判断每张图片是否是新的或之前呈现过的。击中、误报和整体表现（辨别准确性）是我们的因变量。主要发现是，在所有参与者中，不愉快的图片比愉快的图片和有人物的图片比没有人的图片的识别记忆更好。低唤醒度的图片比高唤醒度的图片被更准确地识别，而且这种效果在中年和老年成年人中比在年轻成年人中更为显著。识别记忆随着成年而恶化，而且这种下降在男性中比女性更为陡峭。中年和老年女性比男性表现更好。这项研究表明，我们能够成功区分以前看到的和新的图像刺激的能力取决于几个与图片动机意义和内容有关的属性，以及观察者的年龄和性别。
