Valenced appearance-behavior cues affect the extent of impression memory

Abstract

ABSTRACTPrior work has often shown higher memory for impressions of valenced verbal cues when such valence is congruent with valence conveyed by actors’ facial characteristics. The current work examined specific valence contributions to appearance-congruent memory advantages. Untrustworthy and trustworthy faces were paired with positive, negative, and neutral behaviours (Study 1) and traits (Study 2). Negative versus positive trust-related behaviours are more highly diagnostic and weigh more heavily into impressions, suggesting that impressions of negative behaviours should also be more memorable. Consistent with this possibility, an appearance-congruity advantage for memory of impressions formed from behaviours was larger for untrustworthy versus trustworthy faces after correcting for appearance-congruent response biases (Study 1). When forming impressions from traits, verbal cues less contextualised than behaviours, a larger appearance-congruity advantage in impression memory for untrustworthy versus trustworthy faces could be attributed to appearance-congruent responding (Study 2). Across studies, more extremely valenced impressions were better remembered than more neutral impressions regardless of facial trustworthiness. True appearance-congruity advantages in impression memory may thus be larger for untrustworthy faces when verbal cues can be more contextualised. Further, forming impressions of more extremely valenced verbal cues may enhance impression memory regardless of whether cues are incongruent with facial characteristics.