title: Negative Emotional Arousal Impairs Associative Memory Performance for Emotionally Neutral Content in Healthy Participants.
abstract: The effect of emotional arousal on memory presents a complex pattern with previous studies reporting conflicting results of both improved and reduced memory performance following arousal manipulations. In this study we further tested the effect of negative emotional arousal (NEA) on individual-item recognition and associative recognition of neutral stimuli in healthy participants, and hypothesized that NEA will particularly impair associative memory performance. The current study consists of two experiments; in both, participants studied a list of word-pairs and were then tested for items (items recognition test), and for associations (associative recognition test). In the first experiment, the arousal manipulation was induced by flashing emotionally-negative or neutral pictures between study-pairs while in the second experiment arousal was induced by presenting emotionally-negative or neutral pictures between lists. The results of the two experiments converged and supported an associative memory deficit observed under NEA conditions. We suggest that NEA is associated with an altered ability to bind one stimulus to another as a result of impaired recollection, resulting in poorer associative memory performance. The current study findings may contribute to the understanding of the mechanism underlying memory impairments reported in disorders associated with traumatic stress.
authors.affiliation: Beer-Sheva Mental Health Center, Beer-Sheva, Israel; Department of Psychology, Achva Academic College, Beer-Tuvia, Israel.
authors.forename: Jonathan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Guez
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Neuroscience and Zlotowski Center for Neuroscience, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel; Department of Psychology and the School of Social-work, Ashkelon Academic College, Ashkelon, Israel.
authors.forename: Rotem
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Saar-Ashkenazy
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Achva Academic College, Beer-Tuvia, Israel.
authors.forename: Liran
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Mualem
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Achva Academic College, Beer-Tuvia, Israel.
authors.forename: Matan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Efrati
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Achva Academic College, Beer-Tuvia, Israel; Department of Psychology, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel.
authors.forename: Eldad
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Keha
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology*; D001244:Association; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D064368:Healthy Volunteers; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008569:Memory Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology*; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology*; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis