Effect of Emotional Arousal 1 Running Head
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Effect of Emotional Arousal 1 Running Head: THE EFFECT OF EMOTIONAL AROUSAL ON RECALL The Effect of Emotional Arousal and Valence on Memory Recall 500181765 Bangor University Group 14, Thursday Afternoon Effect of Emotional Arousal 2 Abstract This study examined the effect of emotion on memory when recalling positive, negative and neutral events. Four hundred and fourteen participants aged over 18 years were asked to read stories that differed in emotional arousal and valence, and then performed a spatial distraction task before they were asked to recall the details of the stories. Afterwards, participants rated the stories on how emotional they found them, from ‘Very Negative’ to ‘Very Positive’. It was found that the emotional stories were remembered significantly better than the neutral story; however there was no significant difference in recall when a negative mood was induced versus a positive mood. Therefore this research suggests that emotional valence does not affect recall but emotional arousal affects recall to a large extent. Effect of Emotional Arousal 3 Emotional arousal has often been found to influence an individual’s recall of past events. It has been documented that highly emotional autobiographical memories tend to be remembered in better detail than neutral events in a person’s life. Structures involved in memory and emotions, the hippocampus and amygdala respectively, are joined in the limbic system within the brain. Therefore, it would seem true that emotions and memory are linked. Many studies have investigated this topic, finding that emotional arousal increases recall. For instance, Kensinger and Corkin (2003) found that individuals remember emotionally arousing words (such as swear words) more than they remember neutral words. This is supported by Cahill and McGaugh (1995), who presented participants with either an emotionally arousing story (concerning a car accident), or a neutral story. The findings showed that participants who read the neutral story recalled less story elements than those who read the arousal one, and memory was enhanced when the emotional element was introduced in the arousal story. Thus, it would seem that emotions can significantly enhance memories. However, the studies mentioned have only investigated memory using negative emotions and stimuli. Therefore, it is difficult to say whether it is the emotional valence or arousal that is responsible for enhanced recall. There is considerable evidence to suggest that the emotional valence an individual feels can affect recall of memories. Some argue that negative emotion makes one focus, and thus one can remember details better (Kensinger, 2007). This idea is supported by Kensinger, Garoff-Eaton and Schacter (2005), who found that negatively arousing content increases the likelihood of remembering visual details about an object. However, this is disputed to some extent by Yeung, Dalgleish, Golden and Schartau (2006) who found an induced negative mood reduced the specificity of autobiographical memories. Gasper & Clore (2002) added to this suggesting positive moods make people remember general information while negative Effect of Emotional Arousal 4 moods make people focus on detail, thus recall of detail should be better when a negative mood is induced. Therefore, this study investigated the effect of emotional arousal on recall, and also examined recall after negative and positive arousal was induced. It was a between subjects experiment with four conditions. Participants were given two stories to read, one of which contained emotional content. The first condition had participants read a negative story followed by a neutral story, the second condition was a neutral story followed by a negative one, the third condition was a positive story followed by a neutral one and the last was a neutral story followed by a positive one. After reading each story once, participants were asked to perform a distraction task before completing a free recall task about the information in the stories. The hypotheses for this research was that recall of the stories with emotional content will be higher than recall of the stories with neutral content, and that recall will be higher when the neutral story is preceded by the negative story than when preceded by the positive story. Method Participants An opportunity sample of 414 male and female participants, over the age of 18, was collected. Measures Recall was measured by giving participants a free recall task, to write down as much information they could remember about each story (see Appendices A, B & C) on separate, blank pieces of paper. One point was given for each correct phrase the participant recalled that corresponded to the experimenters standardised mark scheme and the maximum amount Effect of Emotional Arousal 5 for each story was 20 points (see Appendix D). Participants were given a scale for each story they read after the experiment to rate how the story made them feel, from ‘Very Negative’ to ‘Very Positive’ with ‘Neutral’ in the middle (see Appendix E). This was used to find out if a particular mood had been successfully induced in participants, and to see how they had perceived the stories. Stimuli and Apparatus Three different stories were used as stimuli in this research. There was one negative story (see Appendix A), one positive (see Appendix B) and one neutral (see Appendix C). Two of the stories were presented to participants, one of which was always neutral and the other contained emotional content. The neutral story was about dive watches, adapted from Ellerby (2004) whereas the emotional stories were about a boy who had been taken to hospital after a car accident (negative) or had been taken to hospital to visit a new sibling (positive), adapted from Cahill & McGaugh (1995). Blank pieces of paper were used for the participants to complete the distraction task of drawing a map, and the free recall tasks about the stories. A rating scale concerning the mood of the participants after reading both stories was also used (see Appendix E). Design The independent variables were the level of emotional content (either emotional or neutral) in the first hypothesis, and the valence of emotional content (positive or negative) in the second hypothesis. Participants were put into four different conditions, where they received one of the following: the neutral story followed by the positive story, the neutral story followed by the negative story, the positive story followed by the neutral story or the negative story followed by the neutral story. This was a between-groups design because participants could not be in more than one condition, in case rehearsal affected memory. Effect of Emotional Arousal 6 Participants read the two stories they were given and were asked to complete a spatial distraction task (drawing a map of their way to work or university) to prevent rehearsal. They then freely recalled information about the stories on blank paper, and points were awarded according to the mark scheme (see Appendix D). Thus, the dependent variable was how much correct information participants recalled from the stories. To reduce experimenter bias, standardised instructions were used (see Appendix F). Procedure Participants read the standardised instructions and signed the consent form (see Appendix G) before reading the two stories presented to them. The stories were taken away and participants completed a distraction task, consisting of drawing a map of their way to work or university. Participants then were given two pieces of paper and asked to write down any information they recalled from the stories on separate sheets. They were given a time limit of five minutes for this free recall task so all participants had the same amount of time to recall information. Afterwards, participants were asked to rate the stories depending on how each story made them feel, e.g. Very Negative, Quite Positive, Neutral etc. Participants were debriefed afterwards (see Appendix H), and the aims of the research and their right to withdraw were explained. Results The results of the recall for the emotional stories and neutral stories are illustrated in Figure 1. It was hypothesised that recall of the stories with emotional content will be higher than recall of the stories with neutral content. The results showed recall for the emotional stories was higher (M = 8.48, SD = 3.11) than that for the neutral story (M = 5.63, SD = 2.75) but little difference between recall for stories presented first (M = 7.00, SD = 3.33) and Effect of Emotional Arousal 7 second (M = 7.11, SD = 3.20). Figure 1. The mean percentage recall of the emotional stories when presented first (n=104) and second (n=103) and neutral story when presented first (n=103) and second (n=104). The error bars represent ± 1 SE of the mean. A two-factor analysis of variance carried out on the results confirmed a main effect of story F(1, 409) = 96.97, p < .001, 2 = .19 but no main effect of order F(1, 409) = 0.13, p = .72, 2 = .01 and no significant interaction F(1, 409) = 0.69, p = .41, 2 = .01. An LSD test carried out post-hoc shows the recall for the emotional stories were significantly higher than that of the neutral story, p < .05. This will be used as evidence to support the claim that emotional details are more likely to be remembered than neutral details. The results of the recall after positive and negative mood induction are illustrated in Figure 2. The hypothesis stated that recall will be higher when the neutral story is preceded by the negative story than when preceded by the positive story. The results showed similar recall for the neutral story when it followed the positive story (M= 6.24, SD=2.45) and the negative story (M= 5.50, SD= 2.82). Effect of Emotional Arousal 8 Figure 2. The mean recall of the neutral story after participants read the positive story (n=43) and the negative story (n=61).