Abstract
In daily life, emotional events are often discussed with others. The influence of these social interactions on the veracity of emotional memories has rarely been investigated. The authors (Choi, Kensinger, & Rajaram Memory and Cognition, 41, 403–415, 2013) previously demonstrated that when the categorical relatedness of information is controlled, emotional items are more accurately remembered than neutral items. The present study examined whether emotion would continue to improve the accuracy of memory when individuals discussed the emotional and neutral events with others. Two different paradigms involving social influences were used to investigate this question and compare evidence. In both paradigms, participants studied stimuli that were grouped into conceptual categories of positive (e.g., celebration), negative (e.g., funeral), or neutral (e.g., astronomy) valence. After a 48-hour delay, recognition memory was tested for studied items and categorically related lures. In the first paradigm, recognition accuracy was compared when memory was tested individually or in a collaborative triad. In the second paradigm, recognition accuracy was compared when a prior retrieval session had occurred individually or with a confederate who supplied categorically related lures. In both of these paradigms, emotional stimuli were remembered more accurately than were neutral stimuli, and this pattern was preserved when social interaction occurred. In fact, in the first paradigm, there was a trend for collaboration to increase the beneficial effect of emotion on memory accuracy, and in the second paradigm, emotional lures were significantly less susceptible to the “social contagion” effect. Together, these results demonstrate that emotional memories can be more accurate than nonemotional ones even when events are discussed with others (Experiment 1) and even when that discussion introduces misinformation (Experiment 2).
Highlights
In daily life, emotional events are often discussed with others
Mem Cogn (2016) 44:706–716 across valences, by using categorized study lists, emotionally arousing items are more accurately remembered than are neutral items, and there is no tendency for emotion to enhance false recognition
When emotional events occur in daily life, social interactions are likely to be a critical part of the memory rehearsal and retrieval process
Summary
Emotional events are often discussed with others. The influence of these social interactions on the veracity of emotional memories has rarely been investigated. Harris, Barnier, Sutton, and Keil (2010) examined how collaborative discussion influenced memories for the autobiographical context and emotion of learning about the death of BThe Crocodile Hunter.^ They found no effect of collaboration on the autobiographical details that people reported about where and when they had learned the news, but they did find that collaboration distorted people’s memories for their experienced emotions, reducing the shock and overall emotion that participants remembered feeling None of these studies included a neutral control event; all three demonstrate that collaborative retrieval can affect emotional memory characteristics, they leave open the question of how emotional memories fare relative to neutral ones when social interactions occur during retrieval. These findings raise the possibility that collaboration could have different effects on negative and positive memories
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