Reduced associative memory for negative information: impact of confidence and interactive imagery during study

Caplan, Jeremy B.; Sommer, Tobias; Madan, Christopher R.; Fujiwara, Esther

Abstract

Although item-memory for emotional information is enhanced, memory for associations between items is often impaired for negative, emotionally arousing compared to neutral information. We tested two possible mechanisms underlying this impairment, using picture pairs: 1) higher confidence in one’s own ability to memorise negative information may cause participants to under-study negative pairs; 2) better interactive imagery for neutral pairs could facilitate associative memory for neutral pairs more than for negative pairs. Tested with associative recognition, we replicated the impairment of associative memory for negative pairs. We also replicated the result that confidence in future memory (judgments of learning) was higher for negative than neutral pairs. Inflated confidence could not explain the impairment of associative recognition memory: Judgements of learning were positively correlated with associative memory success for both negative and neutral pairs. However, neutral pairs were rated higher in their conduciveness to interactive imagery than negative pairs, and this difference in interactive imagery showed a robust relationship to the associative memory difference. Thus, associative memory reductions for negative information are not due to differences in encoding effort. Instead, interactive imagery may be less effective for encoding of negative than neutral pairs.

Citation

Caplan, J. B., Sommer, T., Madan, C. R., & Fujiwara, E. (2019). Reduced associative memory for negative information: impact of confidence and interactive imagery during study. Cognition and Emotion, 33(8), 1745-1753. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2019.1602028

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 20, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Apr 16, 2019
• Publication Date: Apr 16, 2019
• Deposit Date: Apr 9, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 17, 2020
• Journal: Cognition and Emotion
• Print ISSN: 0269-9931
• Electronic ISSN: 1464-0600
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 33
• Issue: 8
• Pages: 1745-1753
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2019.1602028
• Keywords: Memory, emotion, paired associate learning, imagery, metacognition
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1722408
• Publisher URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02699931.2019.1602028
• Additional Information: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Cognition and Emotion on 16/04/2019, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02699931.2019.1602028