EFFECTS OF EMOTION AND MEMORY TYPE ON RECOGNITION

The Effects of Emotion and Memory Type on Memory Recognition Troy E. Gibson, Jr. Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania

Author Note Troy E. Gibson, Jr., Department of Psychology, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. Correspondence concerning the article should be addressed to Troy E. Gibson, Jr., Department of Psychology, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, Bloomsburg, PA 17815. Email: teg16454@huskies.bloomu.edu

EFFECTS OF EMOTION AND MEMORY TYPE ON RECOGNITION Abstract The overall goal of this study was to determine the exact effect from emotion on memory

recognition. This study included 24 psychology students (20 females and 4 male) at Bloomsburg University with ages ranging from 19 to 22 (M = 20.833). The participants were asked to view 180 total pictures (60 neutral, 60 happy, 60 sad) from the International Picture System (IAPS). The participants were first asked to study 60 pictures of varying emotion and then view a series of 120 pictures (half from studied pictures, and half new) and indicate which pictures they had seen before and which were new. Upon completion they were asked to do a surprise memory task in which they viewed a series of 120 pictures (half from previous series, and half new) and indicate which they had seen before and which were new. Using the data collected I found that negative and neutral pictures were more remembered for both incidental and intentional memory tasks. In addition, I found that neutral pictures were the most remembered, but only for incidental memory compared to intentional memory. Using this study it can be concluded that neutral stimuli have the greatest effect on memory. Specifically, incidental memory is best at remembering neutral stimuli. Keywords: incidental memory, intentional memory, memory recognition

EFFECTS OF EMOTION AND MEMORY TYPE ON RECOGNITION The Effects of Emotion and Memory Type on Memory Recognition The way that human beings remember objects, images, or events is a complex concept that is broken into two parts for this study. The two parts include intentional versus incidental memory. Intentional memory is the memory in which one consciously tries to remember an object, image, or event. Incidental memory is the memory in which one unconsciously

remembers objects, images, or events. There are various influences on memory. However, there is little research on the emotional effect of both intentional and incidental memory. Research has shown that positive, negative, and neutral stimuli have varying effects on memory recognition. This study can be important for understanding which emotion, if any, affects memory recognition. In another study done by Kensinger and Corkin (2003) the concept of flashbulb memories or vivid photographic memories of emotional events was examined. They intended to further explain how emotional stimuli types affect memory recognition. This study was unique because no other study has looked at the relationship of arousal and valence on recognition of emotional information. This study included 18 male participants in undergraduate or graduate programs at MIT. The participants were asked to complete one testing session that included 280 words (140 negative, and 140 neutral) from the Affective Norms for English Words. During the study phase the participants were shown a sequence of words and were asked to indicate whether they were abstract or concrete by way of button press. After the study phase there was a 15 min distraction task. Following completion of the distraction the participants were told to complete a recognition test in which the participants were asked to choose whether they remembered, knew, or had never seen the words from the list of words displayed. At the end of the testing session each participant was asked to rate each of the words from the previous list on a scale of 1-9 on

EFFECTS OF EMOTION AND MEMORY TYPE ON RECOGNITION

emotional strength level and 1-9 on emotion arousal level. The researchers used the scores on the scales to indicate which words types the participants remembered. The researchers found that the participants recognition was better for negative words compared to neutral words. They also found that the participants gave greater remember responses for negative words indicating that the participants remember negative stimuli with more vivid detail. This is due to fluency which indicates the level of ease for the brain to process stimuli. In the case of emotional stimuli compared to neutral stimuli, the brain has greater fluency for emotional stimuli which is why the participants could remember the negative words better. One flaw with this experiment is that it did not included positive words. The researchers found that negative words are more remembered than neutral words, but failed to compare their results to other word types. For future improvement of this study it should incorporate positive words. In addition to research done by Kensinger and Corkin (2003), research was also done by Yang and Ornstein (2011) on memory in combination with emotion. Their study was unique because the researchers examined the differences between emotional recognition between young and old adults which had never been done before. The purpose of their study was to determine if differing types of emotion have an effect on recall for young and old adults, as well as compare the effects of age and emotion on both incidental and intentional memory tasks. There were 44 older adult, and 43 younger adult participants in the study. Out of the total participants 20 older and 19 younger adults were randomly assigned to the emotion-focused orientation condition in which the participants were asked to focus on the emotional content of the images. The rest of the participants were evenly assigned to either the information-focused control condition, in which the participants were asked to focus on visual content, or the no-instruction control condition that did not contain any specific focus for the participants. For each condition the

EFFECTS OF EMOTION AND MEMORY TYPE ON RECOGNITION participants were asked to view a series of images from the International Affective Picture System. The first set of images was viewed during an incidental encoding task in which the participants viewed 48 images (16 positive, 16 negative, and 16 neutral) individually. Based on the participants assigned condition they were asked to describe the pictures they could recall. After completion the participants were asked to complete an intentional recognition task in which they viewed 48 pairs of images (32 positive, 32 negative, and 32 neutral), half from the previous task and half never seen before. The participants indicated which image they had seen before in each pair. The researchers found that the control conditions had the highest memory recognition in the incidental memory task and there was no difference in recognition for the

intentional memory task. During the incidental memory task for the participants in the emotionfocused condition the young adults showed increased memory recognition of positive images, but the older adults had no difference in memory recognition for the emotional image types. According to the researchers young adults prioritize their emotional goals in certain situations such as when asked to focus on emotional content in the emotion-focused condition, but older adults do not. This condition activated the young adults emotional bias which explained why the young adults remembered the positive images better than the negative or neutral images. One flaw with the study was that each condition did not have an equal amount of participants. This might have altered the results in favor of the emotion-focused condition. In order to improve the study in the future there should be equal number of participants in each condition. In the previous studies Kensinger and Corkin (2003) explained how emotional words affected memory, also Yang and Ornstein (2011) examined how different emotions affect memory recall in young and old adults. In an additional study by Kensinger, Garoff-Eaton, and Schacter (2007) both concepts were examined together. The purpose of their study was to

EFFECTS OF EMOTION AND MEMORY TYPE ON RECOGNITION determine if age contributed to the enhancement of memory specificity and to determine if emotion affects memory differently with age. The participants in the study included 32 young and 32 older adults from Harvard or Boston College currently or from the Harvard University

database, respectively. The participants were asked to complete both a study procedure and then a test procedure. The study procedure required the participants to view 144 pictures (48 negative, 48 positive, 48 neutral) for 1 s. They were then asked to indicate if each object in the picture could fit into a cabinet. After a 30 min delay for the older adults and a 2 day delay for the younger adults the participants were asked to complete the test procedure. During the test procedure a surprise recognition test was given in which the participants viewed 180 pictures: 72 from study procedure, 72 similar to pictures in study procedure, and 36 brand new pictures. The participants then indicated by key press if each picture was the same, similar, or new. The researchers found that negative items were more associated with greater recognition for both younger and older adults. This is because it is easier for people to remember vivid details for negative stimuli throughout the lifespan. However, the researchers also found that the older adults remembered the negative pictures equivalent to the positive pictures. This happened because positive emotions benefit older adults memories more than it does for younger adults; therefore, older adults would remember positive pictures as well as the negative pictures. A flaw that the researchers pointed out in their study was the time delay before the test procedure. They realized that having the participants complete the test procedure at different times could influence their memory of the pictures. Therefore, they completed the same experiment again without the time delay confound and included it at the end of the study presented. The common theme in the results of the studies presented above was that emotional stimuli are more remembered compared to neutral stimuli. According to Kensinger and Corkin

EFFECTS OF EMOTION AND MEMORY TYPE ON RECOGNITION (2003) as well as Kensinger et al. (2007) negative stimuli are the most remembered of the two

emotions examined. However, positive stimuli are the most remembered according to Yang and Ornstein (2011). To examine the conflicting conclusions between the researchers the purpose of this study was to determine the exact effect from emotion on memory. I conducted a study involving both incidental and intentional memory tasks in which participants were asked to memorize and recall positive, negative, and neutral pictures. The participants were asked to complete an intentional memory task followed by an incidental memory task. During both tasks the participants indicated whether each picture was a brand new picture or a picture they had already seen. After the data was collected the number of correctly indicated remembered pictures (hits) and the incorrectly indicated remembered pictures (false alarms) were tallied and subtracted to produce a memory score. Using the memory score from the incidental and intentional memory tasks it was determined which memory type was better for each type of emotional picture. Based on the data presented above I predicted that negative pictures will have the highest memory score. Because the participants are not asked to focus on emotions specifically in the study, it cannot be assumed that they will have an emotional biased towards positive words like in the Yang and Ornstein (2011) study. However, like stated in the study by Kensinger and Corkin (2003), emotional stimuli are more remembered as a result of fluency therefore the neutral stimuli cannot be most remembered. Because negative stimuli are more vividly remembered especially in young adults, according to Kensinger et al. (2007), the logical prediction was that negative stimuli will be the most remembered. Without much data comparing incidental and intentional memory I predicted that intentional memory will have the higher memory score using the data found by Yang and Ornstein (2011). I felt that intentional memory

EFFECTS OF EMOTION AND MEMORY TYPE ON RECOGNITION will have a higher memory score because the participants were focusing on memorizing the pictures therefore it should produce more memory recognition during the memory task. Method Participants The participants recruited in this study were 24 experimental psychology application students at Bloomsburg University (20 female and four male students). The participants were asked to complete this study as part of their participation grade. The population of interest was young adults, therefore the participants ages ranged from 19 to 22 (M = 20.833). Materials

The stimuli used in the study were 180 total pictures (60 neutral, 60 happy, 60 sad) from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) displayed on a computer screen (Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert, 2008). During the study the answers were recorded with a pencil on the standard double sided answer sheets which were provided. The study was conducted in a standard cubicle room in the McCormick building on the Bloomsburg University campus, which included a desk, a chair, and a complete desktop computer. Procedure Prior to starting the study each participant gave verbal consent to the instructor. Then the participants were moved into individual standard cubicle rooms. Once in the standard cubicle room the participants were informed by their instructor to follow the directions on the computer screen. The study consisted of three phases, the first was the study phase, followed by the test phase, and the last was the surprise test phase. During the study phase the participants were shown 60 pictures (20 neutral, 20 happy, 20 sad) on the computer screen for 2.5 s and asked to remember them. Following this the test phase began. During the test phase the participants were

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shown 120 pictures one at a time. The participants could look at each picture as long as they felt necessary before moving to the next. Half of the pictures shown were the 60 rehearsed in the study phase and the other half were 60 new pictures (20 neutral, 20 happy, 20 sad). After each picture was shown the participants were asked to indicate on the answer sheet if the picture shown was old or new. After giving an answer for all 120 pictures the participants began the surprise test phase. During this test phase the participants were shown 120 pictures (60 from the previous test phase, 60 brand new). After each picture was shown the participants were asked to mark on the other side of the answer sheet if the picture was brand new or if they had seen it before. Following the completion of the study the participants were called into a classroom by their instructor and debriefed. Results In this study I conducted a 3 x 2 repeated measures ANOVA on memory score (hits false alarms) during a memory recall test. There was a significant main effect of picture type, F(2, 46) = 9.980, p < .001. There was also found to be a significant interaction between type of picture used and the type of recall, F(2, 46) = 3.247, p = .048. However, there was no significant main effect for recall type, F(1, 23) = .210, p = .651. There was no significant main effect for recall type because the memory scores for intentional memory (M = 17.278) did not vary from the memory scores for incidental memory (M = 17.472). The main effect of picture type was examined by conducting a pairwise comparison with Bonferroni correction. From this I concluded there was a significant main effect for picture type because the memory scores for positive pictures (M = 16.667) was lower than both the negative pictures (M = 17.604) and the neutral pictures (M = 17.854). As shown in the interaction in Figure 1, as the memory score for incidental recall goes up for each picture type (M = 16.75 to M

EFFECTS OF EMOTION AND MEMORY TYPE ON RECOGNITION 10 = 18.29) the memory score for intentional recall plateaus for each picture type (M = 16.58 to M = 17.41). Discussion In conclusion, I found that the memory scores for negative and neutral pictures were higher than the memory scores for positive pictures. This proved to be consistent with the previous studies and my predictions. I also found that there was an effect of emotion on incidental versus intentional memory. However based on the data collected, neutral pictures for incidental memory had the highest memory score. Because the negative pictures did not have the highest memory score consistent with my prediction I rejected my previous hypothesis about emotion. In addition I found that there were no differences in the memory scores for incidental and intentional memory. This also went against my predictions. Therefore, because intentional memory did not have the highest memory score I rejected my previous hypothesis about memory type. Interpreting the results I found that negative and neutral pictures were the most remembered and that positive pictures were the least remembered. This is because fluency is lower for positive stimuli according to Kensinger and Corkin (2003), as stated above. This also may have occurred because neutral pictures could have been interpreted as negative. I also found that neutral words were the most remembered during the incidental memory task. This implies the idea that neutral stimuli can be more easily remembered without trying. In general people tend to remember neutral vague details when they are not trying or there is nothing that sticks out about the information. Because there were pictures that stood out in the incidental memory task the participants remembered them, but by process of elimination the participants were able to pick out the neutral items because the participants vaguely remembered them. Interpreting the

EFFECTS OF EMOTION AND MEMORY TYPE ON RECOGNITION 11 results I also found that there was no difference between incidental and intentional memory. It can be implied from these results that people can equally remember stimuli if they try or if they dont try to remember. This occurred because there was no way to completely prevent rehearsal of the pictures. Because the study involved psychology students they were more likely to analyze the pictures for things to help them remember even if they didnt realize it. I interpreted the results of my study differently than that of the studies presented above. For this reason my study does not show external validity. My study was different from the study done by Kensinger et al. (2007) because there was no time delay before the surprise test phase. In their study the participants completed the surprise test phase after an extended period of time (30 min or 2 days). The results of their study were different from my study because I felt they better measured memory. After an extended period of time participants are more likely to remember certain emotional types of pictures. In my study the memory tests were in a row and may have caused the participants to become more familiar with all the pictures. As a result the participants may have had improved memory scores for each picture type, but by chance neutral pictures had the greatest memory scores. A major difference between the study done by Kensinger and Corkin (2003) and my study was that they used words instead of pictures. The results in my study varied from the results they collected potentially due to this difference. Pictures can have various interpretations by the participants and could have produced false memory scores as a result of misinterpretation of the pictures emotional context. However, words are less likely to be misinterpreted as having a different emotional context and can be a better indicator of a persons affinity to remember certain emotional stimuli. Also in their study there was a time delay before completing the test phase. As stated above this also could have caused the participants to only remember certain pictures because the stimuli were not fresh in

EFFECTS OF EMOTION AND MEMORY TYPE ON RECOGNITION 12 their minds. My study was also different from the study done by Yang and Ornstein (2011). Their study required the participants to focus on specific materials during the encoding task, but my study did not ask the participants to focus on anything. As the researchers pointed out, when a person is asked to remember specific content they tend to remember positive things. Therefore, that is why my results did not agree with the results of their study. Because pictures were self-paced during the incidental memory task but not during the intentional memory task, there was one confound in my study that could have led to the results I collected. The participants may have taken more time to examine the details of each picture during the incidental memory task to better identify each picture as new or as seen before. As a result, this may have made the memory scores for incidental memory appear higher. An alternate explanation for the results of the experiment would be the valence of the emotional pictures. There is the possibility that the pictures used during the study did not produce a strong enough emotional response in the participants for them to realize they were either positive or negative. As a result, this may have caused the participants to remember the pictures without an emotional influence and by chance the neutral pictures had the higher memory scores. Overall during this study I examined the effect emotion has on memory recognition. I only focused on two types of memory, incidental and intentional memory. Incidental and intentional memory are important for understanding how people remember things. Analyzing how emotion affected incidental and intentional memory in this study can help everyday people understand better ways to remember things. By comprehending that certain emotions are remembered better we can alter the way in which we try to remember things in order to accommodate that emotion.

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References Kensinger, E. A., Corkin, S. (2003). Memory enhancement for emotional words: Are emotional words more vividly remembered than neutral words? Memory & Cognition, 31(8), 11691180. Kensinger, E. A., Garoff-Eaton, R. J., & Schacter, D. L. (2007). Effect of emotion on memory specificity in young and older adults. Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, 62B(4), 208-215. Lang, P. J., Bradley, M. M., & Cuthbert, B. N. (2008). International affective picture system (IAPS): Affective ratings of pictures and instruction manual. Technical Report A-8. Yang, L., Ornstein, T.J. (2011). The effect of emotion-focused orientation at retrieval on emotional memory in young and older adults. Memory, 19(3), 305-313.

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20 Memory Score (hits - false alarms)

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Figure 1. The effect of emotion on memory type, including standard error bars, shows that positive pictures were remembered the same for incidental memory and intentional memory, and that memory for both incidental and intentional memory increased for negative pictures. Also neutral pictures were remembered the most for incidental memory compared to intentional memory.