Remembering what you feel: Effects of emotion on memory.

Abstract

In two studies, recall was best when subjects' manipulated facial expressions were consistent with the emotional content of material recalled. In both studies, subjects' mood response to manipulated expressions was first assessed in a separate procedure. Subjects whose mood was affected were designated the selfproduced cue group. In Study 1, 60 undergraduate volunteers then read two passages of the same emotional content, either anger-provoking editorials or humorous selections by Woody Allen. Later, one selection was recalled while frowning and one while smiling. In the self-produced cue group, recall was significantly better for the editorials when frowning and for the Woody Allen stories when smiling. In the nonself cue group, expressions did not affect recall. In Study 2, 20 subjects heard and recalled three kinds of sentences, angry, sad, or fearful, in the same three expressions. Again, only in the self-produced cue group was recall significantly better when sentence and expression were consistent. The combination of studies indicates that these effects are due to mood rather than expression and to the match between expression and content at the time of recall.