ABSTRACT

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.

摘要

尽管进行了数十年的研究，但仍不清楚情绪环境如何影响对非情绪信息的记忆。在两项研究中，我们之前发现在情绪环境中编码的中性信息的记忆准确性因价而异。具体来说，在负面语境中编码的中性图像与在非情绪性语境中编码的中性图像的记忆准确度相似，而在积极语境中编码的中性图像的记忆准确度低于非情绪性语境。该注册报告包含第三项研究，用于复制我们的原始结果，并允许直接比较负编码条件和正编码条件。处于积极状态的人表现出记忆准确性下降，但这种影响的规模非常小，仅与中性状态相比才显着。鉴于负面和中性条件之间没有区别，情绪对记忆的影响不仅仅是情绪唤醒的功能。同时，考虑到积极和消极条件之间不显着的微小差异，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审视情绪增强记忆这一原则的一步，除非体验引起足够高的唤醒水平，从而导致记忆受损。