|
Forming Vivid Memories
Effects of Emotional Content: A primary research goal is to better understand the cognitive and neural processes that underlie the formation of vivid memories, and how the emotional significance of the to-be-remembered information affects those processes. Prior research has demonstrated that young adults believe that they vividly remember negative information, regardless of whether that information is high or low in arousal. Our research examines (a) whether this memory enhancement typically extends to positive as well as negative information, (b) what neural processes underlie the memory enhancements, and (c) whether the memory enhancements are consistent across the adult lifespan. Click here to view a list of relevant publications.
Effects of Emotional Content: The fact that we believe that we vividly remember something does not necessarily translate to a more accurate memory for that prior event. Studies of memory for real-life events sometimes have revealed little correlation between the subjective vividness and objective accuracy of a memory. Another central goal of our research is to examine the types of tasks and information for which emotional content enhances the likelihood of remembering detailed information about an event. We are investigating this question using assessments of source memory, memory for specific visual detail, and associative learning. We are particularly interested in understanding how emotion affects the ability to remember this type of detailed information (at both a behavioral and a neural level), and in clarifying how those effects of emotion change across the adult lifespan. Click here to view a list of relevant publications.
|
Search: [ current | former scholar ] [ current | awarded institution ] [ quick search ]
