title: The impact of emotion intensity on recognition memory: Valence polarity matters.
abstract: Although the effects of emotion of different emotional intensity on memory have been investigated, it remain unclear whether the influence of emotional intensity on memory varies depending on the stimulus valence polarity (i.e., positive or negative). To address this, event-related potentials were recorded when subjects performed a continuous old/new discrimination task, for highly negative (HN), mildly negative (MN) and neutral pictures in the negative session; and for highly positive (HP), mildly positive (MP) and neutral pictures in the positive session. The results showed that relative to neutral stimuli, both HN and MN stimuli showed increased memory discrimination scores, and enhanced old/new effect in early FN400 (Frontal Negativity), but not late positive component (LPC) amplitudes. By contrast, relative to MP stimuli, HP and neutral stimuli showed increased memory discrimination scores and enhanced old/new effect in LPC but not FN400 amplitudes. Additionally, we observed a significant positive correlation between the memory discrimination score and the old/new effect in the amplitudes of the FN400 and LPC, respectively. These results indicate that both HN and MN stimuli were remembered better than neutral stimuli; whereas the recognition was worse for MP stimuli than Neutral and HP stimuli. In conclusion, in the present study, we observed that the effect of emotion intensity on memory depends on the stimulus valence polarity.
authors.affiliation: The Laboratory for Affect Cognition and Regulation, Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality of Ministry of Education (SWU), Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Beibei, Chongqing 400715, China; School of Education, Nanyang Normal University, Nanyang, Henan 473061, China.
authors.forename: Xianxin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Meng
authors.affiliation: School of Education, Nanyang Normal University, Nanyang, Henan 473061, China.
authors.forename: Ling
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: School of Education, Nanyang Normal University, Nanyang, Henan 473061, China.
authors.forename: Wenwen
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: School of Education, Nanyang Normal University, Nanyang, Henan 473061, China.
authors.forename: XinSheng
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Ding
authors.affiliation: Research Centre for Brain Function and Psychological Science, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China.
authors.forename: Hong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: The Laboratory for Affect Cognition and Regulation, Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality of Ministry of Education (SWU), Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Beibei, Chongqing 400715, China. Electronic address: sagacity@swu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Jiemin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: The Laboratory for Affect Cognition and Regulation, Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality of Ministry of Education (SWU), Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Beibei, Chongqing 400715, China. Electronic address: yuanjiaj@swu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: JiaJin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yuan
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Emotion intensity; Event-related potentials; Recognition memory; Valence polarity