Telling about emotionally significant events is a basic activity in human relationships and plays an integral role in the process of psychotherapy, in film and literature, and in other contexts where emotional experiences are shared using language. Bringing events and images to mind activates feelings anew; talking about them may further activate and perhaps alter the experiences as registered in the speaker’s memory. We review the results of five studies where participants were asked to bring an emotionally significant event to mind and report how they felt at the time (time 1); report how they feel now in the moment of thinking about it (time 2); tell about the event, and report how they felt after telling (time 3). Overall, we see a pattern whereby participants’ ratings of emotional intensity are high at time 1, lower at time 2 and high again at time 3. Most participants reported some change in the characterization of their emotions after describing the event, e.g. angry to neutral, and a smaller proportion reported more marked changes e.g. happy to sad. Language style indicating the presence of a referential process was shown to be moderately related to change in characterization of emotion in two of the three studies in which language measures were applied. In combination the studies suggest that change in emotional characterization comes about in the context of the referential process associated with an increase in reflection. Revisions of the paradigm in future research are discussed.

讲述具有情感意义的事件是人际关系中的一项基本活动，在心理治疗、电影和文学以及其他使用语言分享情感体验的环境中发挥着不可或缺的作用。将事件和图像带入脑海会重新激活感觉；谈论它们可能会进一步激活并可能改变说话者记忆中记录的体验。我们回顾了五项研究的结果，其中要求参与者记住一个重要的情感事件，并报告他们当时的感受（时间 1）；报告他们现在思考时的感受（时间 2）；讲述事件，并报告他们讲述后的感受（时间 3）。总体而言，我们看到一种模式，即参与者在时间 1 时对情绪强度的评分很高，在时间 2 降低，在时间 3 再次升高。大多数参与者报告在描述事件后他们的情绪特征发生了一些变化，例如愤怒到中性，而较小比例的参与者报告了更显着的变化，例如高兴到悲伤。在应用语言测量的三项研究中的两项中，表明存在指称过程的语言风格与情绪特征的变化呈中度相关。综合研究表明，情绪特征的变化发生在与反思增加相关的参照过程的背景下。讨论了未来研究中范式的修订。较小的比例报告了更显着的变化，例如高兴到悲伤。在应用语言测量的三项研究中的两项中，表明存在指称过程的语言风格与情绪特征的变化呈中度相关。综合研究表明，情绪特征的变化发生在与反思增加相关的参照过程的背景下。讨论了未来研究中范式的修订。较小的比例报告了更显着的变化，例如高兴到悲伤。在应用语言测量的三项研究中的两项中，表明存在指称过程的语言风格与情绪特征的变化呈中度相关。综合研究表明，情绪特征的变化发生在与反思增加相关的参照过程的背景下。讨论了未来研究中范式的修订。综合研究表明，情绪特征的变化发生在与反思增加相关的参照过程的背景下。讨论了未来研究中范式的修订。综合研究表明，情绪特征的变化发生在与反思增加相关的参照过程的背景下。讨论了未来研究中范式的修订。