Memory For Emotional Experiences Research Articles

False Memories for Affective Information in Schizophrenia.

Studies have shown a direct link between memory for emotionally salient experiences and false memories. In particular, emotionally arousing material of negative and positive valence enhanced reality monitoring compared to neutral material since emotional stimuli can be encoded with more contextual details and thereby facilitate the distinction between presented and imagined stimuli. Individuals with schizophrenia appear to be impaired in both reality monitoring and memory for emotional experiences. However, the relationship between the emotionality of the to-be-remembered material and false memory occurrence has not yet been studied. In this study, 24 patients and 24 healthy adults completed a false memory task with everyday episodes composed of 12 photographs that depicted positive, negative, or neutral outcomes. Results showed how patients with schizophrenia made a higher number of false memories than normal controls (p < 0.05) when remembering episodes with positive or negative outcomes. The effect of valence was apparent in the patient group. For example, it did not affect the production causal false memories (p > 0.05) resulting from erroneous inferences but did interact with plausible, script consistent errors in patients (i.e., neutral episodes yielded a higher degree of errors than positive and negative episodes). Affective information reduces the probability of generating causal errors in healthy adults but not in patients suggesting that emotional memory impairments may contribute to deficits in reality monitoring in schizophrenia when affective information is involved.

Glucocorticoid receptors recruit the CaMKIIα-BDNF-CREB pathways to mediate memory consolidation

Emotionally important events are well remembered. Although memories of emotional experiences are known to be mediated and modulated by the stress hormones glucocorticoids, little is known about the underlying molecular mechanisms. Here we show that the hippocampal glucocorticoid receptors critically engaged during the formation of long–term inhibitory avoidance memory in rats are coupled to the activation of CaMKIIα, TrkB, ERK, Akt, PLCγ and CREB, as well as a significant induction of Arc and synaptic GluA1. Most of these changes, which are initiated by a non–genomic effect of glucocorticoid receptors, are also downstream of the activation of brain–derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). Hippocampal administration of BDNF, but not other neurotrophins, selectively rescues both the amnesia and the molecular impairments produced by glucocorticoid receptor inhibition. Hence, glucocorticoid receptors mediate long–term memory formation by recruiting the CaMKIIα–BDNF–CREB–dependent neural plasticity pathways.

The effect of emotional arousal and retention delay on subsequent-memory effects

Memory for emotional experiences often persists longer than memory for neutral experiences. The present study examined how encoding processes influence memory retention across 0.5- or 24-h delays and whether these processes differ between emotionally arousing and neutral information. Participants encoded items during an fMRI scan. Immediately following the scan, and again 24-h later, participants performed a recognition memory test. The results revealed that, for emotionally arousing information, most regions showed a correspondence to subsequent-memory performance that was at least as strong after the long delay as it was after the short delay. For neutral items, by contrast, many more regions, including portions of the hippocampus and lateral prefrontal cortex, showed a stronger correspondence to subsequent-memory performance after the short delay than the long delay. These results suggest that the processes engaged at the moment of encoding have a longer-lasting relation to subsequent memory for emotionally arousing information than for neutral information.

Memory for emotional experiences in the context of attachment and social interaction style

Important dimensions of emotional experiences include the level of arousal elicited and the source of that arousal, yet memory for events differing on these constructs is often compared within and across studies. One important factor for emotional memory is attachment security, which predicts how parents and children relate to each other and to the world around them. The present study investigated differences in 8- to 12-year olds’ recall of emotional stimuli varied in relevance to attachment themes of separation and reunion. Moreover, memory was examined as predicted by children's attachment security, parents’ attachment avoidance and anxiety, and parental elaboration during an interaction about the laboratory experience. Results revealed that recall was best for stimuli involving separation. Moreover, recall for separation stimuli was positively predicted by children's attachment security and parental avoidance, and negatively predicted by parental anxiety and elaborative interaction style. These findings highlight the importance of considering the effect of multiple dimensions of emotional events on children's memory and how contextual factors may differentially predict those memories.

Emotional Memory in Schizophrenia

Emotional memories play an important role in our day-to-day experience, informing many of our minute-to-minute decisions (eg, where to go for dinner, what are the likely consequences of not attending a meeting), as well as our long-term goal setting. Individuals with schizophrenia appear to be impaired in memory for emotional experiences, particularly over longer delay periods, which may contribute to deficits in goal-related behavior and symptoms of amotivation and anhedonia. This article reviews factors that are known to influence emotional memory in healthy subjects, applies these factors to results from emotional memory studies with individuals with schizophrenia, and then uses extant neurobiological models of emotional memory formation to develop hypotheses about biological processes that might particularly contribute to emotional memory impairment in schizophrenia.

The amygdala modulates the consolidation of memories of emotionally arousing experiences.

Converging findings of animal and human studies provide compelling evidence that the amygdala is critically involved in enabling us to acquire and retain lasting memories of emotional experiences. This review focuses primarily on the findings of research investigating the role of the amygdala in modulating the consolidation of long-term memories. Considerable evidence from animal studies investigating the effects of posttraining systemic or intra-amygdala infusions of hormones and drugs, as well as selective lesions of specific amygdala nuclei, indicates that (a) the amygdala mediates the memory-modulating effects of adrenal stress hormones and several classes of neurotransmitters; (b) the effects are selectively mediated by the basolateral complex of the amygdala (BLA); (c) the influences involve interactions of several neuromodulatory systems within the BLA that converge in influencing noradrenergic and muscarinic cholinergic activation; (d) the BLA modulates memory consolidation via efferents to other brain regions, including the caudate nucleus, nucleus accumbens, and cortex; and (e) the BLA modulates the consolidation of memory of many different kinds of information. The findings of human brain imaging studies are consistent with those of animal studies in suggesting that activation of the amygdala influences the consolidation of long-term memory; the degree of activation of the amygdala by emotional arousal during encoding of emotionally arousing material (either pleasant or unpleasant) correlates highly with subsequent recall. The activation of neuromodulatory systems affecting the BLA and its projections to other brain regions involved in processing different kinds of information plays a key role in enabling emotionally significant experiences to be well remembered.

Life-satisfaction is a momentary judgment and a stable personality characteristic: the use of chronically accessible and stable sources.

Social cognition research indicates that life-satisfaction judgments are based on a selected set of relevant information that is accessible at the time of the life-satisfaction judgment. Personality research indicates that life-satisfaction judgments are quite stable over extended periods of time and predicted by personality traits. The present article integrates these two research traditions. We propose that people rely on the same sources to form repeated life-satisfaction judgments over time. Some of these sources (e.g., memories of emotional experiences, academic performance) provide stable information that explains the stability in life-satisfaction judgments. Second, we propose that the influence of personality traits on life satisfaction is mediated by the use of chronically accessible sources because traits produce stability of these sources. Most important, the influence of extraversion and neuroticism is mediated by use of memories of past emotional experiences. To test this model, participants repeatedly judged life-satisfaction over the course of a semester. After each assessment, participants reported sources that they used for these judgments. Changes in reported sources were related to changes in life-satisfaction judgments. A path model demonstrated that chronically accessible and stable sources are related to stable individual differences in life-satisfaction. Furthermore, the model supported the hypothesis that personality effects were mediated by chronically accessible and stable sources. In sum, the results are consistent with our theory that life-satisfaction judgments are based on chronically accessible sources.