Enhancing retention of false memories through negative emotional arousal during reconsolidation
Year: 2013
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Finn and Roediger and collaborators (2011, 2012) found that emotionally arousing negative pictures presented to subjects in the period immediately following a retrieval of a veracious memory enhances subsequent cued-recall test performance in comparison to non-arousing neutral pictures or blank screen had been shown. This finding suggests that the period just after retrieval, called reconsolidation, together with negative emotion influence, plays a significant role in enhancing memory performance. In the present study, we investigated whether such effect would be valid for the phenomenon of false memories. Participants studied lists of associated words (DRM lists). On a subsequent free-recall test, participants’ generation of non-presented critical items (false memories) was immediately followed by pictures inducing a negative or neutral emotion or by a blank screen. Although we did not observed the expected significant memory enhancement for false memories followed by arousing images the results revealed less decline of memory retention (less forgetting effect) for those items compared to other retrieved words followed by neutral pictures or blanks. The results and their possible theoretical implications are further analyzed and discussed.
Author: Agata Peliksza
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2223268698