Abstract
To investigate the enhancing effect of post-learning stress on memory, we requested 38 Japanese undergraduates to perform a learning task that involved positive, negative, and neutral words with controlled arousal and subsequently assigned them to a stress group (exposed to acute white noise) or a control group. After a 10-min filler task, we administered a delayed free recall test and a recognition test. We found that exposure to acute stress after learning significantly enhanced recognition memory of words, but found no differences in memory scores for stimuli of varying valence. We accordingly propose that post-learning stress, though enhancing memory performance, may not depend on word valence when stimulus arousal is controlled. This is the first study to find that post-learning stress enhances memory after a short delay, and it has several implications with regard to traumatic memories in stress-related disorders.
Highlights
Stressful events are remembered well, and are vivid for individuals with stress-related disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Berntsen, Willert, & Rubin, 2003)
There are some incongruities in different studies in the effect of acute stress on emotional memory and neutral memory
With regard to the effect of stress on memory consolidation, many studies have found that stress after learning can enhance memory performance
Summary
Stressful events are remembered well, and are vivid for individuals with stress-related disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Berntsen, Willert, & Rubin, 2003). Researchers investigating laboratory stress have recently reported that people remember well the memory of a stressor itself and the memory that is created immediately before or after stress. This effect was thought to be stress-enhanced memory consolidation (Wolf, 2008). Kirschbaum, Wolf, May, Wippich, and Hellhammer (1996) found that pre-learning stress impaired memory, while some researchers have reported that such pre-learning stress tended to impair neutral memory while either enhancing or having no influence on positive and negative emotional memory (Jelicic, Geraerts, Merckelbach, & Guerrieri, 2004; Smeets, Jelicic, & Merckelbach, 2006). The use of a post-learning manipulation appears to be desirable to determine the effect of stress on memory consolidation
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