Poster #7 - Enhancing effects of emotion on subsequent memory: Evidence in recall versus recognition

• In Event: 1-115 - Poster Session 03
  In Poster Session: PS 03 Section - Attention, Learning, Memory

Integrative Statement

Adults remember emotional events better than neutral events. Memory retrieval can be tested in recall or recognition performance, which provide differing levels of challenge in memory processes. Specifically, recognition is considered an “easier” retrieval process since it relies on the detection of familiarity versus novelty given external cues (e.g., old versus new stimuli), whereas recall is more challenging in that no external cues are presented and the individual must rely only on their internal representation of the experience to remember. Although adults show enhancing effects of emotion on memory in both recall and recognition tests, the strength of the effect may be larger under more challenging retrieval conditions (e.g., enhancing effects on recognition appear to be larger when tested at longer versus shorter delays, Weymar & Hamm, 2013). This suggests that emotion may be an especially helpful memory cue under more challenging memory conditions. Children show a mixed pattern of memory for lab-controlled emotional events and have been tested primarily in recognition formats. This pattern of effects could be clarified by examining memory under more strenuous retrieval conditions. In this research, we examine school-age children’s memory for emotional versus neutral scenes under “easier” (recognition) versus “challenging” (recall) retrieval formats. Further, we record event-related potentials (ERPs) during the encoding of the scenes to examine the role of emotional arousal in predicting subsequent memory performance. To date, no investigation of children’s emotional memory has included examination of subsequent memory effects at encoding. The purpose of the present research is to investigate the presence of enhancing effect of emotion on memory under different retrieval challenges, and examine the role of emotional arousal at encoding in predicting subsequent recall and recognition performance. We predicted that enhancing effects of emotion on memory would be stronger under more challenging retrieval conditions (i.e., recall vs. recognition), and if emotional arousal explains enhancing effect on memory, then there should be stronger relations between arousal at encoding with recall versus recognition performance.
Eight- to 12-year-old children viewed positive, negative, and neutral parent-approved pictures from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS; Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert, 2008) while we recorded ERPs from 32 electrode sites. After a ten-minute delay, children were asked to verbally recall as many pictures as possible over a ten-minute period. Then participants completed an old/new recognition task and then rated all pictures on valence and arousal.
In a preliminary examination of sample data, memory performance is stronger under recognition versus recall formats (i.e., higher corrected recognition proportion versus proportion recalled). Both measures of retrieval performance suggest emerging enhancing effects of emotion. Continued data collection and further analysis will clarify patterns of retrieval, and how encoding of emotion (see Fig. 1 below from preliminary sample) relates to the different measures of retrieval. Results will inform understanding of how emotion may or may not enhance memory processes in school-age children, and specifically how the effect may appear in recall versus recognition performance.

Authors

• Elizabeth Bell, Towson University
  Presenting Author

• Jacqueline Leventon, Towson University
  Non-Presenting Author