The influence of affective priming effect on implicit and explicit memory in mood congruency memory of university students

Abstract

Objective To investigate the different effect of positive and negative emotion induced by film clips on explicit and implicit memory,and whether there is mood congruency effect. Methods Thirty participants who were randomly assigned to three experimental groups were investigated. They were exposed in different film clips and then worked on memory task. After each emotional condition,the 5-point Self Assessment Scale was registered , Buchner's processing dissociation corrected model was employed to separate explicit and implicit memory. Results (1) The emotion arousal level of different films is significantly different, the scores of negative film and positive film were more than that of neutral film( (3.24 ± 1.02),(2.85 ± 1.35),(1.12 ± 1.42) , P＜0.01) ; the scores of emotional valence of positive,negative and neutral priming condition were (4. 10 ±0. 20), (3. 60 ± 0.22) and (3.20 ±0. 97), and there was a significant difference between emotion priming conditions (F(2,27) = 46.81, P＜ 0. 01). (2) There was a significant difference among different emotion priming conditions in R (F(2,87) = 30.129, P＜0.05) .and there was no significant difference among different emotion priming conditions in A. (3) In R,there was a main effect in emotional words(F(2,81) = 10.516, P＜0.05) ,the R scores of neutral words were significantly higher than those of negative words(P＜0.01) ,there was a main effect in emotion priming conditions(F (2,81) =10.516, P＜0.05) ,the R scores of positive emotion priming group and neutral emotion priming group were significantly higher than those of negative emotion priming group (P＜0.05). There was an interaction of emotional words and emotion priming conditions(F(4,81) = 10.640, P ＜ 0.01). Under positive emotion priming condition, the R scores of positive and neutral words were significantly higher than those of negative words (P＜0.05);under negative emotion priming condition, the R scores of negative words were significantly higher than those of positive words (P ＜0.05); under neutral emotion priming condition, the R scores of positive and neutral words were significantly higher than those of negative words (P＜0.05). (4) In A, the main effect of emotion priming conditions and emotional words and interaction effect between them were not significant(P＞0.05). Conclusions Explicit memory showed mood congruency memory effect,but implicit memory,neither the positive emotion priming group nor the negative emotion priming group exhibited mood congruency memory effect. Key words: Emotion priming; Explicit memory; Implicit memory; Mood congruency memory