Emotion and memory: Event-related potential indices predictive for subsequent successful memory depend on the emotional mood state

• Authors: Markus Kiefer , Stefanie Schuch , Wolfram Schenck , Klaus Fiedler

Abstracts

EN

The present research investigated the influences of emotional mood states on cognitive processes and neural circuits during long-term memory encoding using event-related potentials (ERPs). We assessed whether the subsequent memory effect (SME), an electrophysiological index of successful memory encoding, varies as a function of participants' current mood state. ERPs were recorded while participants in good or bad mood states were presented with words that had to be memorized for subsequent recall. In contrast to participants in bad mood, participants in good mood most frequently applied elaborative encoding styles. At the neurophysiological level, ERP analyses showed that potentials to subsequently recalled words were more positive than to forgotten words at central electrodes in the time interval of 500-650 ms after stimulus onset (SME). At fronto-central electrodes, a polarity-reversed SME was obtained. The strongest modulations of the SME by participants' mood state were obtained at fronto-temporal electrodes. These differences in the scalp topography of the SME suggest that successful recall relies on partially separable neural circuits for good and bad mood states. The results are consistent with theoretical accounts of the interface between emotion and cognition that propose mood-dependent cognitive styles.

Keywords

EN

episodic memory; emotion; cognitive styles; subsequent memory effect; event-related potentials

• Publisher: Wyższa Szkoła Finansów i Zarządzania w Warszawie
• Journal: Advances in Cognitive Psychology
• Year: 2007
• Volume: 3
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 363-373

Contributors

author

Markus Kiefer

• Department of Psychiatry, University of Ulm, Ulm, Germany

author

Stefanie Schuch

• Department of Psychology, University of Wales, Bangor, UK

author

Wolfram Schenck

• Department of Technology, University of Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany

author

Klaus Fiedler

• Department of Psychology, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/v10053-008-0001-8