Abstract
Emotion regulates our memory in daily life. Previous studies have shown that extrinsic emotion during encoding impairs the memory for target stimulus. However, most previous studies focused on the effects of emotion on the typical encoding without intentional retrieval. It remains unclear how emotion affects the retrieval-based encoding and memory. In the present study, we examined how encoding type (restudy versus retrieval practice) regulates emotional memory retention. We adopted a typical retrieval practice paradigm with an initial study phase, a second phase with either a restudy or a retrieval practice task, and a final recognition test. In order to create extrinsic emotional background, emotional pictures were used during the restudy and retrieval practice tasks. The recognition test was carried out 5 min or 24 h after the restudy or retrieval practice task. We found an emotional impairment effect on familiarity (5-min retention interval) under the retrieval practice condition, but not under the restudy condition, and an emotional enhancement effect on item memory (24-h retention interval) under the restudy condition, but not under the retrieval practice condition. The present study demonstrated the effect of encoding type on emotional memory and suggested a retention interval dependent effect of encoding type, contributing to the theory of emotional memory by highlighting the role of encoding type and retention interval.
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Data from the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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The present study was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China 32200848 (X.J.) and Hangzhou Normal University Scientific Research start-up fund project RWSK20201013 (X.J.)
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Jia, X., Gao, C., Wu, D. et al. Effects of encoding type and retention interval on emotional memory. Curr Psychol 43, 2114–2123 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-04396-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-04396-5