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Emotion Emotions are mental states brought on by neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or displeasure. There is currently no scientific consensus on a definition. ...
can have a powerful effect on humans and animals. Numerous studies have shown that the most vivid
autobiographical memories Autobiographical memory is a memory system consisting of episodes recollected from an individual's life, based on a combination of episodic (personal experiences and specific objects, people and events experienced at particular time and place) an ...
tend to be of emotional events, which are likely to be recalled more often and with more clarity and detail than neutral events. The activity of emotionally enhanced memory retention can be linked to human evolution; during early development, responsive behavior to environmental events would have progressed as a process of trial and error. Survival depended on behavioral patterns that were repeated or reinforced through life and death situations. Through evolution, this process of learning became genetically embedded in humans and all animal species in what is known as
flight or fight The fight-or-flight or the fight-flight-or-freeze response (also called hyperarousal or the acute stress response) is a physiological reaction that occurs in response to a perceived harmful event, attack, or threat to survival. It was first desc ...
instinct. Artificially inducing this instinct through traumatic physical or emotional stimuli essentially creates the same physiological condition that heightens memory retention by exciting neuro-chemical activity affecting areas of the brain responsible for encoding and recalling memory. This memory-enhancing effect of emotion has been demonstrated in many laboratory studies, using stimuli ranging from words to pictures to narrated slide shows, as well as autobiographical memory studies. However, as described below, emotion does not always enhance memory.


Arousal and valence in memory

One of the most common frameworks in the emotions field proposes that
affective Affect, in psychology, refers to the underlying experience of feeling, emotion or mood. History The modern conception of affect developed in the 19th century with Wilhelm Wundt. The word comes from the German ''Gefühl'', meaning "feeling." ...
experiences are best characterized by two main dimensions:
arousal Arousal is the physiological and psychological state of being awoken or of sense organs stimulated to a point of perception. It involves activation of the ascending reticular activating system (ARAS) in the brain, which mediates wakefulness, th ...
and
valence Valence or valency may refer to: Science * Valence (chemistry), a measure of an element's combining power with other atoms * Degree (graph theory), also called the valency of a vertex in graph theory * Valency (linguistics), aspect of verbs rel ...
. The dimension of valence ranges from highly positive to highly negative, whereas the dimension of arousal ranges from calming or soothing to exciting or agitating. The majority of studies to date have focused on the arousal dimension of emotion as the critical factor contributing to the emotional enhancement effect on memory. Different explanations have been offered for this effect, according to the different stages of memory formation and reconstruction. However, a growing body of research is dedicated to the emotional valence dimension and its effects on memory. It has been claimed that this is an essential step towards a more complete understanding of emotion effects on memory. The studies that did investigate this dimension have found that emotional valence alone can enhance memory; that is, nonarousing items with positive or negative valence can be better remembered than neutral items.


Emotion and encoding

From an
information processing Information processing is the change (processing) of information in any manner detectable by an observer. As such, it is a process that ''describes'' everything that happens (changes) in the universe, from the falling of a rock (a change in posi ...
perspective,
encoding In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter (alphabet), letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes data compression, shortened or secrecy, secret ...
refers to the process of interpreting incoming stimuli and combining the processed information. At the encoding level the following mechanisms have been suggested as mediators of emotion effects on memory:


Selectivity of attention

Easterbrook's (1959) cue utilization theory predicted that high levels of arousal will lead to
attention Attention is the behavioral and cognitive process of selectively concentrating on a discrete aspect of information, whether considered subjective or objective, while ignoring other perceivable information. William James (1890) wrote that "Att ...
narrowing, defined as a decrease in the range of cues from the stimulus and its environment to which the organism is sensitive. According to this hypothesis, attention will be focused primarily on the arousing details (cues) of the stimulus, so that information central to the source of the emotional arousal will be encoded while peripheral details will not. Accordingly, several studies have demonstrated that the presentation of emotionally arousing stimuli (compared to neutral stimuli) results in enhanced memory for central details (details central to the appearance or meaning of the emotional stimuli) and impaired memory for peripheral details. Also consistent with this hypothesis are findings of weapon focus effect, in which witnesses to a crime remember the gun or knife in great detail but not other details such as the perpetrator's clothing or vehicle. In laboratory replications it was found that participants spend a disproportionate amount of time looking at a weapon in a scene, and this looking time is inversely related to the likelihood that individuals will subsequently identify the perpetrator of the crime. Other researchers have suggested arousal may also increase the duration of attentional focusing on the arousing stimuli, thus delaying the disengagement of attention from it. Ochsner (2000) summarized the different findings and suggested that by influencing attention selectivity and dwell time, arousing stimuli are more distinctively encoded, resulting in more accurate memory of those stimuli. While these previous studies focused on how emotion affects memory for emotionally arousing stimuli, in their arousal-biased competition theory, Mather and Sutherland (2011) argue that how arousal influences memory for non-emotional stimuli depends on the priority of those stimuli at the time of the arousal. Arousal enhances perception and memory of high priority stimuli but impairs perception and memory of low priority stimuli. Priority can be determined by bottom-up salience or by top-down goals.


Prioritized processing

Emotional items also appear more likely to be processed when attention is limited, suggesting a facilitated or prioritized processing of emotional information. This effect was demonstrated using the
attentional blink Attentional blink (AB) is a phenomenon that reflects temporal limitations in the ability to deploy visual attention. When people must identify two visual stimuli in quick succession, accuracy for the second stimulus is poor if it occurs within 200 ...
paradigm in which 2 target items are presented in close temporal proximity within a stream of rapidly presented stimuli. The typical finding is that participants often miss the second target item, as if there were a "blink" of attention following the first target's presentation, reducing the likelihood that the second target stimulus is attended. However, when the second target stimulus elicits emotional arousal (a "taboo" word), participants are less likely to miss the target's presentation, which suggests that under conditions of limited attention, arousing items are more likely to be processed than neutral items. Additional support for the prioritized processing hypothesis was provided by studies investigating the visual extinction deficit. People suffering from this deficit can perceive a single stimulus in either side visual field if it is presented alone but are unaware of the same stimulus in the visual field opposed to the lesional side, if another stimulus is presented simultaneously on the lesional side. Emotion has been found to modulate the magnitude of the visual extinction deficit, so that items that signal emotional relevance (e.g., spiders) are more likely to be processed in the presence of competing distractors than nonemotional items (e.g., flowers).


Emotion and storage

In addition to its effects during the encoding phase, emotional arousal appears to increase the likelihood of
memory consolidation Memory consolidation is a category of processes that stabilize a memory trace after its initial acquisition. A memory trace is a change in the nervous system caused by memorizing something. Consolidation is distinguished into two specific processe ...
during the retention (
storage Storage may refer to: Goods Containers * Dry cask storage, for storing high-level radioactive waste * Food storage * Intermodal container, cargo shipping * Storage tank Facilities * Garage (residential), a storage space normally used to store car ...
) stage of memory (the process of creating a permanent record of the encoded information). A number of studies show that over time, memories for neutral stimuli decrease but memories for arousing stimuli remain the same or improve. Others have discovered that memory enhancements for emotional information tend to be greater after longer delays than after relatively short ones. This delayed effect is consistent with the proposal that emotionally arousing memories are more likely to be converted into a relatively permanent trace, whereas memories for nonarousing events are more vulnerable to disruption. A few studies have even found that emotionally arousing stimuli enhance memory only after a delay. The most famous of these was a study by Kleinsmith and Kaplan (1963) that found an advantage for numbers paired with arousing words over those paired with neutral words only at delayed test, but not at immediate test. As outlined by Mather (2007), the Kleinsmith and Kaplan effects were most likely due to a methodological confound. However, Sharot and Phelps (2004) found better recognition of arousing words over neutral words at a delayed test but not at an immediate test, supporting the notion that there is enhanced memory consolidation for arousing stimuli. According to these theories, different
physiological Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemica ...
systems, including those involved in the discharge of
hormones A hormone (from the Greek participle , "setting in motion") is a class of signaling molecules in multicellular organisms that are sent to distant organs by complex biological processes to regulate physiology and behavior. Hormones are required fo ...
believed to affect memory consolidation, become active during, and closely following, the occurrence of arousing events. Another possible explanation for the findings of the emotional arousal delayed effect is post-event processing regarding the cause of the arousal. According to the post stimulus elaboration (PSE) hypothesis, an arousing emotional experience may cause more effort to be invested in elaboration of the experience, which would subsequently be processed at a deeper level than a neutral experience. Elaboration refers to the process of establishing links between newly encountered information and previously stored information. It has long been known that when individuals process items in an elaborative fashion, such that meaning is extracted from items and inter-item associations are formed, memory is enhanced. Thus, if a person gives more thought to central details in an arousing event, memory for such information is likely to be enhanced. However, these processes could also disrupt consolidation of memories for peripheral details. Christianson (1992) suggested that the combined action of perceptual, attentional, and elaborative processing, triggered by an emotionally arousing experience, produces memory enhancements of details related to the emotion laden stimulus, at the cost of less elaboration and consolidation of memory for the peripheral details.


Emotion and elaboration

The processes involved in this enhancement may be distinct from those mediating the enhanced memory for arousing items. It has been suggested that in contrast to the relatively automatic attentional modulation of memory for arousing information, memory for non-arousing positive or negative stimuli may benefit instead from
conscious Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scien ...
encoding strategies, such as elaboration. This elaborative processing can be
autobiographical An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life. It is a form of biography. Definition The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English p ...
or
semantic Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comput ...
. Autobiographical elaboration is known to benefit memory by creating links between the processed stimuli, and the self, for example, deciding whether a word would describe the personal self. Memory formed through autobiographical elaboration is enhanced as compared to items processed for meaning, but not in relation to the self. Since words such as "
sorrow Sorrow may refer to: * Sorrow (emotion) * ''Sorrow'' (Van Gogh), an 1882 drawing by Vincent van Gogh * "Sorrow" (Bad Religion song), 2001 * "Sorrow" (The McCoys song), also covered by The Merseys and David Bowie * "Sorrow" (Pink Floyd song), ...
" or "
comfort Comfort (or being comfortable'')'' is a sense of physical or psychological ease, often characterized as a lack of hardship. Persons who are lacking in comfort are uncomfortable, or experiencing discomfort. A degree of psychological comfort c ...
" may be more likely to be associated with autobiographical experiences or self-
introspection Introspection is the examination of one's own Consciousness, conscious thoughts and feelings. In psychology, the process of introspection relies on the observation of one's Mental representation, mental state, while in a Spirituality, spiritual c ...
than neutral words such as "shadow", autobiographical elaboration may explain the memory enhancement of non-arousing positive or negative items. Studies have shown that dividing attention at encoding decreases an individual's ability to utilize controlled encoding processes, such as autobiographical or semantic elaboration. Thus, findings that participants' memory for negative non-arousing words suffers with divided attention, and that the memory advantage for negative, non-arousing words can be eliminated when participants encode items while simultaneously performing a secondary task, has supported the elaborative processing hypothesis as the mechanism responsible for memory enhancement for negative non-arousing words.


Emotion and retrieval

Retrieval is a process of reconstructing past experiences; this phenomenon of reconstruction is influenced by a number of different variables described below.


Trade-off between details

Kensinger argues there are two trade-offs: central/peripheral trade-off of details and a specific/general trade-off. Emotional memories may include increased emotional details often with the trade-off of excluding background information. Research has shown that this trade-off effect cannot be explained exclusively by overt attention (measured by eye-tracking directed to emotional items during encoding) (Steinmetz & Kensinger, 2013).


Contextual effects of emotion on memory

Contextual effects occur as a result of the degree of similarity between the encoding context and the retrieval context of an emotional dimension. The main findings are that the current
mood Mood may refer to: *Mood (psychology), a relatively long lasting emotional state Music *The Mood, a British pop band from 1981 to 1984 * Mood (band), hip hop artists * ''Mood'' (Jacquees album), 2016 * ''Moods'' (Barbara Mandrell album), 1978 ...
we are in affects what is attended, encoded and ultimately retrieved, as reflected in two similar but subtly different effects: the mood congruence effect and mood-state dependent retrieval. Positive encoding contexts have been connected to activity in the right fusiform gyrus. Negative encoding contexts have been correlated to activity in the right amygdala (Lewis & Critchley, 2003). However, Lewis and Critchley (2003) claim that it is not clear whether involvement of the emotional system in encoding memory differs for positive or negative emotions, or whether moods at recall lead to activity in the corresponding positive or negative neural networks.


=The mood congruence effect

= The
mood congruence Mood congruence is the consistency between a person's emotional state with the broader situations and circumstances being experienced by the persons at that time. By contrast, mood incongruence occurs when the individual's reactions or emotional st ...
effect refers to the tendency of individuals to retrieve information more easily when it has the same emotional content as their current emotional state. For instance, being in a depressed mood increases the tendency to remember negative events (Drace, 2013). This effect has been demonstrated for
explicit Explicit refers to something that is specific, clear, or detailed. It can also mean: * Explicit knowledge, knowledge that can be readily articulated, codified and transmitted to others * Explicit (text) The explicit (from Latin ''explicitus est'', ...
retrieval as well as implicit retrieval.


=Mood-state dependent retrieval

= Another documented phenomenon is the mood-state dependent retrieval, a type of context-dependent memory. The retrieval of information is more effective when the emotional state at the time of retrieval is similar to the emotional state at the time of encoding. Thus, the probability of remembering an event can be enhanced by evoking the emotional state experienced during its initial processing. These two phenomena, the mood congruity effect, and mood-state dependent retrieval, are similar to the context effects which have been traditionally observed in memory research. It may also relate to the phenomena of
state-dependent memory State-dependent memory or state-dependent learning is the phenomenon where people remember more information if their physical or mental state is the same at time of encoding and time of recall. State-dependent memory is heavily researched in regard ...
in
neuropsychopharmacology Neuropsychopharmacology, an interdisciplinary science related to psychopharmacology (study of effects of drugs on the mind) and fundamental neuroscience, is the study of the neural mechanisms that drugs act upon to influence behavior. It entails ...
. When recalling a memory, if someone is recalling an event by themselves or within a group of people, the emotions that they remember may change as well recall of specific details. Individuals recall events with stronger negative emotions than when a group is recalling the same event. Collaborative recall, as it can be referred to, causes strong emotions to fade. Emotional tone changes as well, with a difference of individual or collaborative recall so much that an individual will keep the tone of what was previously felt, but the group will have a more neutral tone. For example, if someone is recalling the negative experience of taking a difficult exam, then they will talk in a negative tone. However, when the group is recalling taking the exam, they will most likely recount it in a positive tone as the negative emotions and tones fade. Detail recount is also something that changed based on the emotion state a person is in when they are remembering an event. If an event is being collaboratively recalled the specific detail count is higher than if an individual is doing it. Detail recall is also more accurate when someone is experiencing negative emotion; Xie and Zhang (2016) conducted a study in which participants saw a screen with five colors on it and when presented with the next screen were asked which color was missing. Those who were experiencing negative emotions were more precise than those in the positive and neutral conditions. Aside from emotional state, mental illness like depression relates to people's ability to recall specific details. Those who are depressed tend to overgeneralize their memories and are not able to remember as many specific details of any events as compared to those without depression.


Thematic vs. sudden appearance of emotional stimuli

A somewhat different contextual effect stemmed from the recently made distinction between thematical and sudden appearance of an emotionally arousing event, suggesting that the occurrence of memory impairments depends on the way the emotional stimuli are induced. Laney et al. (2003) argued that when arousal is induced thematically (i.e., not through the sudden appearance of a discrete shocking stimulus such as a weapon but rather through involvement in an unfolding event plot and empathy with the victim as his or her plight becomes increasingly apparent), memory enhancements of details central to the emotional stimulus need not come at the expense of memory impairment of peripheral details. Laney et al. (2004) demonstrated this by using an audio narrative to give the presented slides either neutral or emotional meaning, instead of presenting shockingly salient visual stimuli. In one of the experiments, participants in both the neutral and emotional conditions viewed slides of a date scenario of a woman and man at a dinner date. The couple engaged in conversation, then, at the end of the evening, embraced. The event concluded with the man leaving and the woman phoning a friend. The accompanying audio recording informed participants in the neutral condition that the date went reasonably well, while participants in the emotional condition heard that, as the evening wore on, the man displayed some increasingly unpleasant traits of a type that was derogatory to women, and the embrace at the end of the evening was described as an attempt to sexually assault the woman. As expected, the results revealed that details central to the event were remembered more accurately when that event was emotional than when neutral, However, this was not at the expense of memory for peripheral (in this case, spatially peripheral or plot-irrelevant) details, which were also remembered more accurately when the event was emotional. Based on these findings it has been suggested that the dual enhancing and impairing effects on memory are not an inevitable consequence of emotional arousal.


Memory of felt emotion

Many researchers use self-report measures of felt emotion as a
manipulation check Manipulation check is a term in experimental research in the social sciences which refers to certain kinds of secondary evaluations of an experiment. Overview Manipulation checks are measured variables that show what the manipulated variables c ...
. This raises an interesting question and a possible methodological weakness: are people always accurate when they recall how they felt in the past? Several findings suggest this is not the case. For instance, in a study of memory for emotions in supporters of former U.S. presidential candidate Ross Perot, supporters were asked to describe their initial emotional reactions after Perot's unexpected withdrawal in July 1992 and again after the presidential election that November. Between the two assessment periods, the views of many supporters changed dramatically as Perot re-entered the race in October and received nearly a fifth of the popular vote. The results showed that supporters recalled their past emotions as having been more consistent with their current appraisals of Perot than they actually were. Another study found that people's memories for how distressed they felt when they learned of the 9/11 terrorist attacks changed over time and moreover, were predicted by their current appraisals of the impact of the attacks (Levine et al., 2004). It appears that memories of past emotional responses are not always accurate, and can even be partially reconstructed based on their current appraisal of events. Studies have shown that as
episodic memory Episodic memory is the memory of everyday events (such as times, location geography, associated emotions, and other contextual information) that can be explicitly stated or conjured. It is the collection of past personal experiences that occurred ...
becomes less accessible over time, the reliance on
semantic memory Semantic memory refers to general world knowledge that humans have accumulated throughout their lives. This general knowledge (word meanings, concepts, facts, and ideas) is intertwined in experience and dependent on culture. We can learn about ...
to remember past emotions increases. In one study Levine et al. (2009) primes of the cultural belief of women being more emotional than men had a greater effect on responses for older memories compared to new memories. The long-term recall of emotions was more in line with the primed opinions, showing that long-term recall of emotions was heavily influenced by current opinions.


Emotion regulation effects on memory

An interesting issue in the study of the emotion-memory relationship is whether our emotions are influenced by our behavioral reaction to them, and whether this reaction—in the form of expression or suppression of the emotion—might affect what we remember about an event. Researchers have begun to examine whether concealing feelings influences our ability to perform common cognitive tasks, such as forming memories, and found that the
emotion regulation Emotional self-regulation or emotion regulation is the ability to respond to the ongoing demands of experience with the range of emotions in a manner that is socially tolerable and sufficiently flexible to permit spontaneous reactions as well as ...
efforts do have cognitive consequences. In the seminal work on negative affect arousal and white noise, Seidner found support for the existence of a negative affect arousal mechanism through observations regarding the devaluation of speakers from other ethnic origins." In a study of Richards and Gross (1999) and Tiwari (2013), participants viewed slides of injured men that produced increases in negative emotions, while information concerning each man was presented orally with his slide. The participants were assigned to either an expressive suppression group (where they were asked to refrain from showing emotion while watching the slides) or to a control group (where they were not given regulatory instructions at all). As predicted by the researchers, suppressors showed significantly worse performance on a memory test for the orally presented information. In another study, it was investigated whether
expressive suppression Expressive suppression is the intentional reduction of the facial expression of an emotion. It is a component of emotion regulation. Expressive suppression is a concept "based on individuals' emotion knowledge, which includes knowledge about the ...
(i.e., keeping one's emotions subdued) comes with a cognitive price. They measured expressive suppression when it spontaneously occurred while watching a movie of surgeries. After the movie, memory was tested and was found to be worse with a higher usage of suppression. In a second study, another movie was shown of people arguing. Memory of the conversation was then measured. When gauging the magnitude of cognitive cost, expressive suppression was compared with self-distraction, which was described as simply not trying to think about something. It was concluded that experimentally-induced suppression was associated with worse memory. There is evidence that emotion enhances memory but is more specific towards arousal and valence factors. To test this theory, arousal and valence were assessed for over 2,820 words. Both negative and positive stimuli were remembered higher than neutral stimuli. Arousal also did not predict recognition memory. In this study, the importance of stimulus controls and experimental designs in research memory was highlighted. Arousal-related activities when affiliated with heightened heart rate (HR) stimulate prediction of memory enhancement. It was hypothesized that tonic elevations in HR (meaning revitalization in HR) and phasic HR (meaning quick reaction) declaration to help the memory. Fifty-three men's heart rates were measured while looking at unpleasant, neutral, and pleasant pictures and their memory tested two days later. It was concluded that tonic elevations created more accurate memory recall. Several related studies have reached similar results. It was demonstrated that the effects of expressive suppression on memory generalize to emotionally positive experiences and to socially relevant contexts. One possible answer to the question "why does emotion suppression impair memory?" might lay in the
self monitoring Self-monitoring, a concept introduced in the 1970s by Mark Snyder, describes the extent to which people monitor their self-presentations, expressive behavior, and nonverbal affective displays. Snyder held that human beings generally differ in sub ...
efforts invested in order to suppress emotion (thinking about the behavior one is trying to control). A recent study found heightened self- monitoring efforts among suppressors relative to control participants. That is, suppressors were more likely to report thinking about their behavior and the need to control it during a conversation. Increases in self-monitoring predicted decreases in memory for what was said, that is, people who reported thinking a lot about controlling their behavior had particularly impoverished memories. However, additional research is needed to confirm whether self-monitoring actually exerts a
causal Causality (also referred to as causation, or cause and effect) is influence by which one event, process, state, or object (''a'' ''cause'') contributes to the production of another event, process, state, or object (an ''effect'') where the ca ...
effect on memory


Emotion-induced forgetting

Emotionally arousing stimuli can lead to
retrograde amnesia In neurology, retrograde amnesia (RA) is a loss of memory-access to events that occurred or information that was learned in the past. It is caused by an injury or the onset of a disease. It tends to negatively affect episodic, autobiographical, ...
for preceding events and
anterograde amnesia In neurology, anterograde amnesia is the inability to create new memories after the event that caused amnesia, leading to a partial or complete inability to recall the recent past, while long-term memories from before the event remain intact. ...
for subsequent events. This has been demonstrated in lab studies with lists of words or pictures, in which people show impaired memory for stimuli appearing before or after arousing stimuli.


Depression and memory

Memory recall tends to be congruent with one's current mood, with depressed people more likely to recall negative events from the past. In addition, depression is often associated with poor memory in general, as outline
here


Dementia and emotional memory

Several studies have demonstrated emotional memory enhancement in Alzheimer's patients suggesting that emotional memory enhancement might be used in the daily management of Alzheimer's patients. One study found that objects are recalled significantly better in Alzheimer's patients if they were presented as birthday presents to AD patients.


Aging and emotional memory

The enhancing effects of emotional arousal on later memory recall tend to be maintained among older adults and the amygdala shows relatively less decline than many other brain regions. However, older adults also show somewhat of a shift towards favoring positive over negative information in memory, leading to a
positivity effect The positivity effect is the ability to constructively analyze a situation where the desired results are not achieved; but still obtain positive feedback that assists our future progression. In attribution The positivity effect as an attributi ...
.


Emotional memory and sleep

Emotional memory and sleep has been a well-researched association. Emotional memories are consolidated greater during sleep, rather than neutral memories. Studies have investigated high valence and arousing words, in comparison to neutral words. Sleep enhances the consolidation of the high valence and arousing words and therefore these are remembered more post-sleep. This concept has been demonstrated in many studies using a variety of media such as pictures, film clips, and words. Memories of 'future relevance' are also consolidated greater during sleep. In a study by Wilhelm et al., 2011, memories of items that participants knew were needed for the future (for the testing session) were remembered more after sleep. Sleep consolidated these memories of future relevance to a greater extent. Memories that are emotionally significant and relevant for the future are therefore preferentially consolidated during sleep. This can translate to mean that memories that are more meaningful or valuable to a person are consolidated more. The concept of emotional memory and sleep can be applied to real-life situations e.g. by developing more effective learning strategies. One could integrate the memorization of information that possesses high emotional significance (highly salient) with information that holds little emotional significance (low salience), prior to a period of sleep.


See also

*
Affective memory Affective memory was an early element of Stanislavski's 'system' and a central part of method acting. Affective memory requires actors to call on the memory of details from a similar situation (or more recently a situation with similar emotions) a ...
*
Amnesia Amnesia is a deficit in memory caused by brain damage or disease,Gazzaniga, M., Ivry, R., & Mangun, G. (2009) Cognitive Neuroscience: The biology of the mind. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. but it can also be caused temporarily by the use ...
*
Amygdala The amygdala (; plural: amygdalae or amygdalas; also '; Latin from Greek, , ', 'almond', 'tonsil') is one of two almond-shaped clusters of nuclei located deep and medially within the temporal lobes of the brain's cerebrum in complex v ...
*
Arousal Arousal is the physiological and psychological state of being awoken or of sense organs stimulated to a point of perception. It involves activation of the ascending reticular activating system (ARAS) in the brain, which mediates wakefulness, th ...
*
Autobiographical memory Autobiographical memory is a memory system consisting of episodes recollected from an individual's life, based on a combination of episodic (personal experiences and specific objects, people and events experienced at particular time and place) an ...
*
Creativity Creativity is a phenomenon whereby something new and valuable is formed. The created item may be intangible (such as an idea, a scientific theory, a musical composition, or a joke) or a physical object (such as an invention, a printed literary w ...
* Dispositional affect * Effects of stress on memory *
Emotional contagion Emotional contagion is a form of social contagion that involves the spontaneous spread of emotions and related behaviors. Such emotional convergence can happen from one person to another, or in a larger group. Emotions can be shared across indivi ...
*
Emotional labor Emotional labor is the process of managing feelings and expressions to fulfill the emotional requirements of a job. More specifically, workers are expected to regulate their emotions during interactions with customers, co-workers, clients and man ...
*
Emotions in decision making One way of thinking holds that the mental process of decision-making is (or should be) rational: a formal process based on optimizing utility. Rational thinking and decision-making does not leave much room for emotions. In fact, emotions are ofte ...
*
Flashbulb memory A flashbulb memory is a vivid, long-lasting memory about a surprising or shocking event that has happened in the past. The term "flashbulb memory" suggests the surprise, indiscriminate illumination, detail, and brevity of a photograph; however fl ...
*
Homesickness Homesickness is the distress caused by being away from home.Kerns, Brumariu, Abraham. Kathryn A., Laura E., Michelle M.(2009/04/13). Homesickness at summer camp. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 54. Its cognitive hallmark is preoccupying thoughts of home ...
*
List of emotions Emotion classification, the means by which one may distinguish or contrast one emotion from another, is a contested issue in emotion research and in affective science. Researchers have approached the classification of emotions from one of two fun ...
* Law of effect *
Memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered ...
* Memory and aging *
Mood-dependent memory Mood dependence is the facilitation of memory when mood at retrieval is identical to the mood at encoding. When one encodes a memory, they not only record sensory data (such as visual or auditory data), they also store their mood and emotional state ...
* Nostalgia * Peak–end rule *
Principles of learning Educational psychology & Educational psychologists have identified several principles of learning, also referred to as ''laws of learning'' which seem generally applicable to the learning process. These principles have been discovered, tested, and ...
* Yerkes-Dodson law *
Psychogenic amnesia Psychogenic amnesia or dissociative amnesia is a memory disorder characterized by sudden retrograde episodic memory loss, said to occur for a period of time ranging from hours to years to decades. More recently, "dissociative amnesia" has been ...
; Dissociative Amnesia (''formerly'' Psychogenic Amnesia) ( DSM-IV Dissociative Disorders 300.12)


Notes and references

* * * * * {{Memory Memory Emotion Unsolved problems in neuroscience