Abstract: Abstract: Emotion has important influence on memory. People usually remember better for emotional stimuli than for neutral stimuli. In previous researches, effects of emotional arousal and valence of targets on memory were discussed in detail. However, so far few researches investigate the influence of the emotional relationship between target and context on memory. Therefore, the purpose of the current research was to examine whether and how affective congruency between target and context during encoding impact on memory retrieval by employing affective priming and learning-recognition paradigms and event-related potential (ERP) measurement. Sixteen right-handed undergraduate students participated in the experiment. The stimuli consisted of 600 ordinary emotional pictures (300 positive and 300 negative pictures) as targets during encoding or retrieval and 240 facial emotional pictures (80 positive faces, 80 negative faces, and 80 neutral faces) as primes during encoding. Among prime pictures, 60 pictures were used twice. The experiment was divided into five blocks, each of which comprised encoding, distracting, and retrieval. In encoding phase, each trial began with a fixation point. Following the fixation, a prime picture was presented for 200 ms, and was replace by black screen for 50 ms. A target picture was then displayed for 1500ms. Participants were asked to judge the pleasantness of the target. Having finished the study phase, participants executed a 60s distracter task. In retrieval phase, each trial also began with a fixation point. A target picture was then presented for 250 ms followed by black screen for 2000 ms. Participants were required to press a button as soon as possible to indicate whether the pictures were presented in previous study phase. EEG was recorded from 64 scalp electrodes using an electrode cap. Behavioral results indicated that accuracy rates of recognition for target pictures that were encoded under congruent priming condition (e.g., positive-positive) were significantly higher than under incongruent priming condition (e.g., negative-positive) and neutral priming condition (e.g., neutral-positive) (ps<0.05). However, affective congruency between prime and target didn’t significantly impact on response times (p>0.05). ERP results from retrieval phase revealed, during 300-500ms after target onset, ERPs evoked by negative targets from congruently priming conditions were significantly more positive than from neutral priming conditions (p<0.05). In addition, ERPs evoked by positive targets from congruently priming conditions were significantly more positive than from incongruently priming conditions (p<0.05) during 550-700ms. These results suggest that the context being consistent affectively with targets improves the processing for targets, resulting in high accuracy rate of recognition and more positive ERP in memory retrieval.

Key words: affective congruency, learning-recognition, encoding, retrieval

摘要： 摘 要 本研究将经典情绪启动范式和学习-再认范式相结合，探讨学习时启动与目标的情绪一致性对目标再认的影响。在记忆编码阶段，以情绪面孔图片为启动刺激、一般情绪图片为目标刺激，要求被试对目标图片的效价进行判断；在提取阶段向被试呈现一般情绪图片，要求被试判断是否在前一阶段见过。结果表明，编码阶段的加工背景对记忆提取产生了显著影响。一致启动促进了认知加工与记忆编码，提高了再认正确率。ERP结果也表明，在目标刺激呈现后300-500ms，编码时的情绪一致性对再认阶段消极目标诱发的ERP产生了显著影响。

关键词: 情绪一致性, 学习－再认, 编码, 提取