| |
Abstract:
Abstract: Changing a subjects emotional state has been found
to alter recall of a narrative. The purpose of this study was to
determine the effects of manipulating emotions on a subjects recall
of a span of consonants when individual differences were
controlled. Subjects (n=59) were administered 20 trials. On each
trial, the subjects were forewarned with the appearance of a solid
black dot (BD - 500 ms) that a span of consonants was about to be
displayed (1s/consonant). Recall was assessed immediately. On 3 of
the trials, the BD was changed to either a happy (H), or sad (S)
face. On an additional 3 trials a neutral face appeared (N). It was
hypothesized that when the H or S faces were used instead of the
BD, performance would change relative to N or the BD. There were no
significant differences between the H, S and N trials. There was a
significant improvement (p<0.05) in performance when the H,
S, and N face trials were collapsed together (92% recall) compared
to the trials that occurred after the BD (88% recall). A chi-square
analysis of the frequency of perfect scores on the trials that
followed the H, S, N faces (novel focal point) was significant as
compared to the trials after the BD. We concluded that the novelty
of simply changing the focal point enhanced performance more than
the emotional valence of the stimuli.
|
