title: Effects of facial expression on working memory.
abstract: In long-term memory (LTM) emotional content may both enhance and impair memory, however, disagreement remains whether emotional content exerts different effects on the ability to maintain and manipulate information over short intervals. Using a working-memory (WM) recognition task requiring the monitoring of faces displaying facial expressions of emotion, participants judged each face as identical (target) or not (non-target) to that presented 2 trials back (2-back). Negative expression was better and faster recognised, illustrated by higher target discriminability and target detection. Positive and negative expressions also induced a more liberal detection bias compared with neutral. Taking the preceding item into account, additional accuracy impairment (negative preceding negative target) and enhancement effects (negative or positive preceding neutral target) appeared. This illustrates a differential modulation of WM based on the affective tone of the target (mirroring LTM enhancement- and recognition bias effects), and of the preceding item (enhanced and impaired target detection).
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Division of Neuropsychology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
authors.forename: Emelie S
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Stiernströmer
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Division of Clinical Psychology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wolgast
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Division of Neuropsychology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
authors.forename: Mikael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Johansson
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Emotion-induced enhancement; Emotion-induced impairment; Facial expression; Recognition bias; Two-back