Interference Effects of Emotional Arousal on Recognition Memory: Comparison of Within-object and Between-object Bindings

Abstract

According to the Object-based Binding Theory, emotional arousal enhances within-object binding, but impairs or does not affect between-object memory binding. The present study aimed to investigate the effects of negative emotional arousal on memory updating of within-object and between-object associations. Negative emotional arousal was expected to cause a higher level of interference in intrinsic associations (within object condition) than in extrinsic associations (between object condition). Angry, sad and neutral facial expressions chosen for emotion conditions are paired with various hats as neutral objects. In the within-object condition, the hat was presented together with a face, while in the between-object condition, the hat was presented as a separate object distinct from the face. First, all participants learned a list of face-hat pairs, then learned a second list with the same faces paired with new hats. In the test phase, the second list of pairs was rearranged into half correct and half incorrect, and the participants decided whether the pairs were correct or incorrect. The data were analyzed on the basis of Signal Detection Theory. We found that higher false alarms were given to angry faces in the within-object condition than in the between-object condition. This high false alarm rate indicates that negative emotional arousal prevented memory updating of within-object associations. According to analysis of memory sensitivity, in all emotion conditions, correct and incorrect pairs were better discriminated in the between-object condition than in the within-object condition. When false alarm rates and sensitivity results are considered together, the hypotheses of the study are supported and it is seen that negative emotional arousal leads to proactive interference in the within-object condition and thus makes it difficult to update memory. These results are consistent with the OBT in that negative emotional arousal exerts an enhancing effect on remembering intrinsic features of objects.