Influence of affective meaning on memory for contextual information

[en] In 4 experiments, the authors investigated the influence of the affective meaning of words on memory for 2 kinds of contextual features that differ in the amount of effortful processes they require to be encoded in memory (i.e., color and spatial location). The main results showed that memory for color, in which words were typed, was better for emotional than for neutral words, but only when color information was learned incidentally. In contrast, spatial location of the words was better remembered for emotional than for neutral words whatever the encoding conditions (intentional vs. incidental). It is suggested that the influence of affective meaning on context memory may involve an automatic attraction of attention to contextual features associated with emotional words.

Disciplines :

Theoretical & cognitive psychology

Author, co-author :

D'Argembeau, Arnaud ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département des sciences cognitives > Psychopathologie cognitive

Van der Linden, Martial ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département des sciences cognitives > Psychopathologie cognitive

Language :

English

Title :

Influence of affective meaning on memory for contextual information

Publication date :

June 2004

Journal title :

Emotion

ISSN :

1528-3542

eISSN :

1931-1516

Publisher :

American Psychological Association, Washington, United States - District of Columbia

Volume :

Issue :

Pages :

173-188

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Commentary :

The original publication is available at www.apa.org/journals

Available on ORBi :

since 27 November 2008

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129

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128

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106

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