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Vivid memories of emotional events: The accuracy of remembered minutiae

Memory & Cognition volume 18, pages 496–506 (1990)Cite this article

Abstract

It has been claimed that emotional arousal causes a narrowing of attention, and, therefore, impoverished memory encoding. On this view, if details of an emotional event are reported subsequently, these details must be after-the-fact reconstructions that are open to error. Our study challenges these claims. Using a long-term (2-week), incidental learning procedure, wefound that emotion promotes memory both for information central to an event and for peripheral detail. This contrasts with the results of explicit instructions to remember or to attend closely to the event, both of which seem to promote memory for the event’s gist at the expense of detail. The likely mechanisms underlying these effects are discussed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Psychology Department, Reed College, 97202, Portland, Oregon

    Friderike Heuer & Daniel Reisberg

Authors
  1. Friderike Heuer
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  2. Daniel Reisberg
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Additional information

The experiment reported here was completed as part of Friderike Heuer’s doctoral dissertation.

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Heuer, F., Reisberg, D. Vivid memories of emotional events: The accuracy of remembered minutiae. Memory & Cognition 18, 496–506 (1990). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03198482

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03198482

Keywords

  • Emotional Event
  • Neutral Group
  • Intrusion Error
  • Arousal Version
  • Arousal Group