Human Emotional Memory and the Amygdala: Arousal-Mediated Memory for Specific Word Types

Abstract

This pilot study assessed the effects of valence, semantic cues, and arousal on memory for words belonging to emotional and non-emotional categories. Experiment 1 tested 6 undergraduate students' memories for 20 non-emotional words and 20 emotional words. An 80 word recognition test ( 40 previously shown, 40 new words) was administered following a 3 min. distractor task of simple math problems. The results indicated a ceiling effect and that the experimental design was difficult to analyze. Experiment 2 tested 2 undergraduate students' memories for 100 words, 20 non-emotional and 80 emotional. An identical distractor task and a 200 word recognition test (100 previously shown, 100 new words) were administered. The results were consistent with predictions based on previous research but additional participants must be tested to confirm statistical significance.