Different effects of feedback-induced emotion and material-induced emotion on memory

Abstract

The function of emotion in enhancing memory has been proven by a large number of studies. However, previous studies mainly used emotional materials to induce emotions, and far fewer studies have examined how neutral stimuli and emotional event connections affect memory. In Experiment 1, the feedback from the results was used as an emotional event to explore the impact of connected emotions on memory. In Experiment 2, emotional materials were used to induce emotions, and the effects on memory in the two studies were compared. The emotions induced by the feedback resulted in positive emotions having the strongest effects on memory, while negative emotions had the weakest memory effect. However, when the emotional materials were used, there were different outcomes: negative emotional memories were the best, and neutral memories were the worst. Based on these results, we may conclude that different emotion-inducing methods have different effects on memory and that emotionally enhanced memory is not applicable to all emotion-inducing modes.