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Emotional memories are not all created equal: evidence for selective memory enhancement.
Open accessAbstract
Human brain imaging studies have shown that greater amygdala activation to emotional relative to neutral events leads to enhanced episodic memory. Other studies have shown that fearful faces also elicit greater amygdala activation relative to neutral faces. To the extent that amygdala recruitment is sufficient to enhance recollection, these separate lines of evidence predict that recognition memory should be greater for fearful relative to neutral faces. Experiment 1 demonstrated enhanced memory for emotionally negative relative to neutral scenes; however, fearful faces were not subject to enhanced recognition across a variety of delays (15 min to 2 wk). Experiment 2 demonstrated that enhanced delayed recognition for emotional scenes was associated with increased sympathetic autonomic arousal, indexed by the galvanic skin response, relative to fearful faces. These results suggest that while amygdala activation may be necessary, it alone is insufficient to enhance episodic memory formation. It is proposed that a sufficient level of systemic arousal is required to alter memory consolidation resulting in enhanced recollection of emotional events.
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“Of course, subliminally seeing emotional facial expressions is not equivalent to inducing the corresponding full emotion (Adolphs et al., 2005; Anderson et al., 2006).”
From Evolving Concepts of Emotion and Motivation (2018) · cites this paper as Anderson et al., 2006
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Metadata
- Authors
- Anderson, A. K., Yamaguchi, Y., Grabski, W., & Lacka, D.
- Affiliations
- University of Toronto (CA)
- Stanford University (US)
- Venue
- Learning & Memory
- Publisher
- Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
- Published
- 2006-11
- Volume
- 13
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 711-718
- ISSN
- 1072-0502 (ISSN-L)
- 1549-5485
- PMC
- PMC1783624
- OpenAlex
- W2168638891
- Cited by
- 141
- References
- 68
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 14 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 13 · 2014: 12 · 2013: 8 · 2012: 10
- Type
- posted content
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Learning & Memory (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory Processes and Influences
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
- Keywords
- emotional memory, amygdala, fearful faces, recognition memory, episodic memory, memory consolidation, sympathetic activation, skin conductance, recollection, emotional scenes
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Amygdala, Arousal, Emotions, Facial Expression, Galvanic Skin Response, Humans, Memory, Pattern Recognition, Visual, Photic Stimulation, Reference Values, Recognition, Psychology
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