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Abstract:
Emotional stimuli can influence memory in various ways. In
many situations, emotional stimuli act to enhance memory. It has
been suggested that at increased levels of emotion, selective
effects occur such that emotion-specific information is enhanced,
whereas extraneous or contextual information is reduced. This idea
was investigated by presenting participants with an associative
memory task in the presence of negatively valenced or neutral
pictures (balanced for arousal). During each picture presentation,
three objects were presented in the periphery. Recall for the
objects was comparable in the presence of negative (9.7 + 7.9%)
versus neutral (12.6 + 7.2%) pictures, F(1,23) = 3.14, p > .05.
However, associative memory for the specific items presented
together revealed an enhancement for neutral (63.7 + 11.2%)
compared to negative (58.3 + 10.4%) pictures, F (1,23) = 6.89, p
< .05. These findings are consistent with the idea that
associative or contextual memory may be dysregulated by emotional
stimuli.
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