title: Does remembering emotional items impair recall of same-emotion items?
abstract: In the part-set cuing effect, cuing a subset of previously studied items impairs recall of the remaining noncued items. This experiment reveals that cuing participants with previously-studied emotional pictures (e.g., fear-evoking pictures of people) can impair recall of pictures involving the same emotion but different content (e.g., fear-evoking pictures of animals). This indicates that new events can be organized in memory using emotion as a grouping function to create associations. However, whether new information is organized in memory along emotional or nonemotional lines appears to be a flexible process that depends on people's current focus. Mentioning in the instructions that the pictures were either amusement- or fear-related led to memory impairment for pictures with the same emotion as cued pictures, whereas mentioning that the pictures depicted either animals or people led to memory impairment for pictures with the same type of actor.
authors: Psychology Department, University of California, Santa Cruz, California 95064, USA.
authors: Jo Ann G
authors: JA
authors: Sison
authors: Mara
authors: M
authors: Mather
mesh_terms: D000339:Affect; D003463:Cues; D005239:Fear; D006801:Humans; D008568:Memory; D011939:Mental Recall
references: J Exp Psychol. 1968 Apr;76(4):504-13
references: 5650563
references: Am J Psychol. 1995 Spring;108(1):1-11
references: 7733411
references: Am Psychol. 1981 Feb;36(2):129-48
references: 7224324
references: Mem Cognit. 2004 Jul;32(5):742-51
references: 15552351
references: J Exp Psychol Gen. 1985 Mar;114(1):104-18
references: 3156943
references: Psychol Aging. 2005 Dec;20(4):554-70
references: 16420131
references: Mem Cognit. 2005 Sep;33(6):1025-35
references: 16496723
references: Psychol Bull. 1986 Mar;99(2):229-46
references: 3515383
references: Mem Cognit. 1983 May;11(3):211-27
references: 6621337
references: Behav Brain Sci. 1999 Aug;22(4):577-609; discussion 610-60
references: 11301525
references: Trends Cogn Sci. 2005 Oct;9(10):496-502
references: 16154382
references: Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 2006;10(1):20-46
references: 16430327
references: Psychol Aging. 2005 Dec;20(4):571-8
references: 16420132
references: Psychol Sci. 2000 May;11(3):244-8
references: 11273411
references: Behav Res Methods. 2005 Nov;37(4):626-30
references: 16629294