Emotional Arousal and Associative Memory: The Role of Combinatorial Mapping

doi:10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240204

Abstract

Abstract: Previous studies have found that emotional arousal has different effects on associative memory. The object-based framework explains this from the perspective of association type, which believes that emotional arousal will enhance the intra-item associative memory, and will not affect or damage the inter-item associative memory. However, studies which revealed that emotional arousal had different effects on associative memory are not only different in the types of associative memory, but are also different in the combinatorial mapping by reviewing previous studies. In the study of intra-item associative memory, multiple items usually correspond to one source, which is a "many-to-one" mapping, while in the study of inter-item associative memory, one to one item pairs are usually used, which reflects a "one-to-one" mapping. In this study, we intend to investigate whether combinatorial mapping is one of the reasons that emotional arousal has different effects on associative memory. We hypothesize that the influence of emotion on associative memory is not only related to the type of association, but is also related to the combinatorial mapping.
To test the above hypothesis, seventy-four participants from Shandong Normal University were recruited. The number of participants was determined by G*power 3.1 software with reference to the effect size standard in previous studies. The experiments were performed in E-prime 2.10. Experiment 1 explored the effect of emotional arousal on intra-item and inter-item associative memory under the condition of "many-to-one" mapping. Experiment 2 investigated the effect of emotional arousal on different types of associative memory when the combinatorial mapping between the items was "one-to-one". Both Experiments 1 and 2 used a 2 (emotion type, negative, neutral) × (association type, intra-item, inter-item) mixed experimental design. Participants were randomly assigned to intra-item association group or inter-item association group. In each experiment, three phases were included. During the study phase, participants were instructed to remember the association between the item and its character (for example, color, font, and so on) or the association between the item and background picture. Then, there was a distractor task which required participants to do the simple calculation task for two minutes. During the test phase, participants were instructed to decide whether the item had presented during the study phase first. If participants correctly judged the old items as old, they continued to do the associative recognition in which participants were asked to choose which form of item was presented or picture was presented simultaneously with the item in the study phase.
Experiment 1 showed that when the combinatorial mapping was "many-to-one", emotional arousal enhanced the intra-item associative memory and damaged the inter-item associative memory, which was consistent with the prediction of the object-based framework. Experiment 2 found that when the combinatorial mapping was "one-to-one", emotional arousal impaired intra-item associative memory and did not affect inter-item associative memory, which is not consistent with the prediction of the object-based framework. According to the result of two experiments, it can be found that when the combinatorial mapping changed, the influence of emotional arousal on the association memory would change, too. Moreover, the influence of emotional arousal on associative memory was connected with both the type of association and related to the combinatorial mapping.
The result showed that although the object-based framework can better explain the different effects of emotion on associative memory, the explanatory power of the theory still had boundary conditions. That is, the effect of emotion on associative memory was influenced by the type of association and the combinatorial mapping. The findings of this study can be used to further improve the theory that explain the different effects of emotion arousal on associative memory.

Key words: emotion, associative memory, object-based framework, combinatorial mapping

摘要： 在验证Mather（2007）基于客体的框架基础上,采用联结再认范式进一步考查了联结对应关系和情绪唤醒对项目内、项目间联结记忆的影响。实验1在控制联结对应关系为“多对一”的条件下,直接比较了情绪对项目内、项目间联结记忆的影响。结果发现,情绪唤醒对项目内联结记忆产生了增强作用,但有损害项目间联结记忆的趋势。实验2则控制联结对应关系为“一对一”,结果发现情绪唤醒损害项目内联结记忆,不影响项目间联结记忆。这表明,情绪唤醒对联结记忆的不同影响不仅和联结记忆类型有关,还与联结对应关系有关。

关键词: 情绪, 联结记忆, 基于客体的框架, 联结对应关系

Zhang Yurong, Niu Yuanyuan, Sun Caihong, Mao Weibin. Emotional Arousal and Associative Memory: The Role of Combinatorial Mapping[J]. Journal of Psychological Science, 2024, 47(2): 281-289.

张玉荣, 牛媛媛, 孙彩红, 毛伟宾. 情绪唤醒对联结记忆的影响：联结对应关系的作用^*[J]. 心理科学, 2024, 47(2): 281-289.

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