Department of Psychological Science, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA.
Center for Healthy Minds, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA.
Cogn Emot. 2021 Jun;35(4):774-789. doi: 10.1080/02699931.2021.1874880. Epub 2021 Jan 20.
Despite decades of study, it remains unclear how emotional contexts influence memory for non-emotional information. In two studies, we previously found memory accuracy for neutral information encoded in an emotional context differed by valence. Specifically, neutral images encoded in a negative context were remembered with similar accuracy as those encoded in a non-emotional context, and neutral images encoded in a positive context were remembered with less accuracy than a non-emotional context. This Registered Report contains a third study to replicate our original results and allow for direct comparison between the negative and positive encoding conditions. People in the positive condition showed decreased memory accuracy, but this effect was very small in size and only significant when compared to the neutral condition. Given the lack of difference between negative and neutral conditions, effects of emotion on memory are not only a function of emotional arousal. At the same time, given the nonsignificant, small difference between positive and negative conditions, effects of emotion on memory are also not solely attributable to valence. This series of studies represents a step towards re-examining the tenet that emotion enhances memory unless the experience elicits sufficiently high arousal levels such that memory is impaired.
尽管经过了几十年的研究，但情绪背景如何影响非情绪信息的记忆仍然不清楚。在之前的两项研究中，我们发现情绪背景下编码的中性信息的记忆准确性因效价而异。具体来说，在负面情绪背景下编码的中性图像的记忆准确性与在非情绪背景下编码的中性图像相似，而在积极情绪背景下编码的中性图像的记忆准确性则低于非情绪背景下的记忆准确性。本注册报告包含了第三项研究，旨在复制我们的原始结果，并允许在负性和正性编码条件之间进行直接比较。处于正性条件下的人表现出记忆准确性下降，但这种影响的幅度非常小，只有与中性条件相比才具有显著性。鉴于负性和中性条件之间没有差异，情绪对记忆的影响不仅是情绪唤醒的函数。同时，由于正性和负性条件之间没有显著的、微小的差异，情绪对记忆的影响也不仅仅归因于效价。这一系列研究代表了重新检验情绪增强记忆的原则的一个步骤，除非该体验引起足够高的唤醒水平，从而导致记忆受损。
