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Abstract:
Abstract: Mixed results have been found in research on the
effects of arousal on memory. Positive and negative affect were
expected to affect recall differently since the two types of affect
are known to be processed separately in the two hemispheres of the
brain. Two experiments separated negative and positive emotional
arousal and examine their effects on memory for verbal material. In
addition, the experiments allow testing of the hypothesis that
intensity of arousal is positively related to recall. The first
experiment, based on previous work by Cahill and associates,
examined the effects of negative emotional arousal. The second
experiment examined the effects of positive emotional arousal.
Arousing and neutral versions of stories for both affects, equal in
arousal intensity, were used in combination with randomly generated
word packets containing related/unrelated and emotional/neutral
words. Self-report measures of level of arousal were used to test
the intensity hypothesis. Higher levels of both types of emotional
arousal were found to enhance recall for emotionally congruent
material. When the quality of word emotionality was varied, but the
intensity was held constant, positively arousing words were better
recalled in the context of a positive narrative, whereas negatively
arousing words were better recalled in the context of a negative
narrative.
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