ABSTRACT

Emotion alters how we feel, see, and experience the world. In the domain of memory, the emotional valence and arousal of memorised stimuli can modulate both the acuity and content of episodic recall. However, no experiment has investigated whether arousal and valence also influence metacognition for memory (i.e. the process of self-monitoring memories). In a pre-registered study, we applied a novel psychophysiological design together with computational models of metacognition to assess the influence of stimulus valence and arousal on the sensitivity, bias, and efficiency of metamemory. To estimate the role of physiological arousal in mediating these effects, we recorded cardiac measures through pulse oximetry. We found that negative valence substantially decreased both memory performance and subjective confidence, in particular for low arousal words. Simultaneously, we found that emotional valence modulated both heart rate and heart-rate variability (HRV) during recognition memory. Exploratory trial-level analyses further revealed that subjective confidence was encoded in instantaneous heart-rate fluctuations and that this relationship was also modulated by emotional valence. Our results demonstrate that recognition memory and metacognition are influenced by the emotional valence of encoded items and that this correlation is in part related to cardiac activity.

摘要

情绪会改变我们对世界的感受、观察和体验。在记忆领域，记忆刺激的情绪效价和唤醒可以调节情景回忆的敏锐度和内容。然而，没有实验研究唤醒和效价是否也会影响记忆的元认知（即自我监控记忆的过程）。在一项预先注册的研究中，我们应用了一种新的心理生理学设计和元认知计算模型来评估刺激效价和唤醒对元记忆的敏感性、偏见和效率的影响。为了估计生理唤醒在调节这些效应中的作用，我们通过脉搏血氧饱和度记录了心脏测量值。我们发现负价显着降低了记忆性能和主观信心，特别是对于低唤醒词。同时，我们发现情绪效价在识别记忆过程中调节了心率和心率变异性 (HRV)。探索性试验水平的分析进一步表明，主观信心被编码在瞬时心率波动中，并且这种关系也受到情绪效价的调节。我们的结果表明，识别记忆和元认知受编码项目的情绪效价的影响，并且这种相关性部分与心脏活动有关。探索性试验级别的分析进一步表明，主观信心编码在瞬时心率波动中，并且这种关系也受情绪效价的调节。我们的结果表明，识别记忆和元认知受编码项目的情绪效价的影响，并且这种相关性部分与心脏活动有关。探索性试验级别的分析进一步表明，主观信心编码在瞬时心率波动中，并且这种关系也受情绪效价的调节。我们的结果表明，识别记忆和元认知受编码项目的情绪效价的影响，并且这种相关性部分与心脏活动有关。