No evidence for modulation of contextual memory by fearful or disgusted faces.

Abstract

Emotional stimuli modulate cognitive processes such as attention and memory to facilitate an adaptive response to the environment. For example, previous research suggests that fearful facial expressions broaden attention to help the observer localize threats. By contrast, angry expressions embody the threat that they signal, and hence they narrow attention. These attentional changes have downstream effects on memory, such that stimuli presented in the context of fearful faces are better remembered than stimuli presented in the context of neutral faces; the reverse is true for angry faces. The current research sought to replicate the effect of fearful faces on contextual memory and extend it by determining how disgusted faces affect attention. Across two studies, I examined how fearful, disgusted, and neutral faces affected memory for neutral words presented in the immediate temporal context of the faces. I failed to replicate the effect of fearful relative to neutral faces on word memory and further found no evidence for an effect of disgusted relative to neutral faces. These findings raise questions about the robustness of contextual memory modulation by emotional facial expressions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).