Exploring the Facets of Emotional Episodic Memory: Remembering “What,” “When,” and “Which”
研究情绪如何影响情景记忆的不同方面，发现情绪增强了对事件核心内容的记忆，但削弱了背景信息，同时意外地提高了对时间顺序的准确性。
Our memories can differ in quality from one event to the next, and emotion is one important explanatory factor. Still, the manner in which emotion impacts episodic memory is complex: Whereas emotion enhances some aspects of episodic memory—particularly central aspects—it dampens memory for peripheral/contextual information. Extending previous work, we examined the effects of emotion on one often overlooked aspect of memory, namely, temporal context. We tested whether emotion would impair memory for when an event occurred. Participants ( N = 116 adults) watched videos wherein negative and neutral images were inserted. Consistent with prior work, results showed that emotion enhanced and impaired memory, respectively, for “what” and “which.” Unexpectedly, emotion was associated with enhanced accuracy for “when”: We found that participants estimated that neutral images occurred relatively later, but there was no such bias for negative images. By examining multiple features of episodic memory, we provide a holistic characterization of the myriad effects of emotion.