Does stimulus emotionality influence associative memory? Insights from directed forgetting

Abstract

Prior research has demonstrated that stimulus emotionality can affect associative memory, but the patterns are varied: negative valence can either impair or improve it, while positive valence often facilitates it. In addition, it remains unclear whether the influence of stimulus emotionality on associative memory is sensitive to the manipulation of directed forgetting (DF). Thus, this experiment further explored the modulation of stimulus emotionality on associative memory in the case of DF. Besides the intact, rearranged, and new pairs usually adopted, we also included a fourth type of “old+new” pair. The results showed that the correct responses were not exactly the same among pair types; it tended to be better for both neutral and positive pairs vs negative pairs; significant DF effect was confirmed, but its susceptibility to stimulus emotionality only held true for “old+new” case. Further analyses of old proportions and response times provided further evidence for the above patterns. These findings demonstrate that the involvements of the recollection-driven process differ as the function of pair type; the modulation of stimulus emotionality on associative memory reinforces the dual representation account; reliable DF effect suggests both the pivotal roles of selective rehearsal to TBR (to-be-remembered) pairs and of inhibitory control to TBF (to-be-forgotten) pairs; furthermore, the susceptibility of the magnitude of DF effect to stimulus emotionality depends upon the involvement of recollection-driven process.