Electrophysiological correlates of encoding and retrieving emotional events.
This study examined the impact of emotional content on encoding and retrieval processes. Event-related potentials were recorded in a source recognition memory task. During encoding, a posterior positivity for positive and negative pictures (250-450 ms) that presumably reflects attentional capturing of emotionally valenced stimuli was found. Additionally, positive events, which were also rated as less arousing than negative events, gave rise to anterior and posterior slow wave activity as compared with neutral and negative events and also showed enhanced recognition memory. It is assumed that positive low-arousing events enter controlled and elaborated encoding processes that are beneficial for recognition memory performance. The high arousal of negative events may interfere with controlled encoding mechanisms and attenuate item recognition and the quality of remembering. Moreover, topographically distinct late posterior negativities were obtained for the retrieval of the context features location and time that support the view that this component reflects processes in service of reconstructing the study episode by binding together contextual details with an item and that varies with the kind of episodic detail to be retrieved.
Koenig
Stefanie
S
Department of Psychology, Saarland University, Saarbruecken, Germany. stefanie.koenig@mx.uni-saarland.de
Mecklinger
Axel
A
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology*; D001245:Association Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D003265:Contingent Negative Variation; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology; D004193:Discrimination Learning / Q000502:physiology; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral / Q000502:physiology; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005074:Evoked Potentials, Visual / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology*; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted