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EFFECTS OF POST-ENCODING AROUSING STIMULI OF DIFFERENT VALENCES ON PHYSIOLOGY AND MEMORY PERFORMANCE

Abstract

Emotionally arousing events are typically remembered better than neutral events, an effect which is known as the Emotional Enhancement of Memory (EEM). The most widely accepted explanation of this memory enhancement effect for emotional events is that emotional arousal boosts consolidation, a process that occurs after learning, where initially fragile memory traces are strengthened over time and become resistant to forgetting. However, the extent to which EEM occurs for item and associative memory has not been examined. To address this gap, we employed a post-encoding presentation of emotional stimuli, which allowed us to focus specifically on the influence of emotional arousal on the memory consolidation processes. Seventy-six undergraduate students from Emory University were recruited for this study. Participants who were presented with neutral words and word pairs, rated how easily they were able to create a sentence or image with the word or word pair. After encoding, participants were randomly assigned to view either positive, neutral, or negative film clips. Emotional arousal during video presentation was assessed with physiological recordings of heart rate (HR) and skin conductance responses (SCRs)...as well as with subjective emotion reports assessed by valence (negative - positive) and arousal (low emotional intensity - high emotional intensity) ratings and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). Item and associative word memory were tested 24 hours later in a recognition memory test. Preliminary data demonstrate a significant enhancement of associative memory for the positive post-encoding video condition relative to neutral videos. No such enhancement was found for item memory. This study contributes to the growing literature on the effects of post-encoding arousal on memory consolidation and suggests a potential benefit for post-encoding positive stimuli on memory.

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