Abstract
In three experiments, we examined memory for peripheral information that occurred in the same context as emotion-inducing information. In the first two experiments, participants studied either a sentence (Experiment 1) or a pair of words (Experiments 2A—2C) containing a neutral peripheral word, as well as a neutral, negative-valence, or taboo word, to induce an emotional response. At retrieval, the participants were asked to recall the neutral peripheral word from a sentence fragment or emotion-inducing word cue. In Experiment 3, we presented word pairs at encoding and tested memory with associative recognition. In all three experiments, memory for peripheral words was enhanced when it was encoded in the presence of emotionally arousing taboo words but not when it was encoded in the presence of words that were only negative in valence. These data are consistent with priority-binding theory (MacKay et al., 2004) and inconsistent with the attention-narrowing hypothesis (Easterbrook, 1959), as well as with object-based binding theory (Mather, 2007).
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Adolphs, R., Denburg, N. L., & Tranel, D. (2001). The amygdala’s role in long-term declarative memory for gist and detail. Behavioral Neuroscience, 115, 983–992. doi:10.1037/0735-7044.115.5.983
Anderson, A. K. (2005). Affective influences on the attentional dynamics supporting awareness. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 134, 258–281. doi:10.1037/0096-3445.134.2.258
Bartlett, J. C., & Santrock, J. W. (1979). Affect-dependent episodic memory in young children. Child Development, 50, 513–518. doi:10.2307/1129430
Blair, I. V., Urland, G. R., & Ma, J. E. (2002). Using Internet search engines to estimate word frequency. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 34, 286–290.
Bradley, M. M., & Lang, P. J. (1999). Affective norms for English words (ANEW): Stimuli instruction manuals and affective ratings (Tech. Rep. C-1). Gainesville: University of Florida, Center for Research in Psychophysiology.
Buchanan, T. W., & Adolphs, R. (2002). The role of the human amygdala in emotional modulation of long-term declarative memory. In S. C. Moore & M. Oaksford (Eds.), Emotional cognition: From brain to behaviour. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Burke, A., Heuer, F., & Reisberg, D. (1992). Remembering emotional events. Memory & Cognition, 20, 277–290.
Christianson, S.-Å., & Loftus, E. F. (1991). Remembering emotional events: The fate of detailed information. Cognition & Emotion, 5, 81–108. doi:10.1080/02699939108411027
D’Argembeau, A., & van der Linden, M. (2004). Influence of affective meaning on memory for contextual information. Emotion, 4, 173–188. doi:10.1037/1528-3542.4.2.173
Doerksen, S., & Shimamura, A. P. (2001). Source memory enhancement for emotional words. Emotion, 1, 5–11. doi:10.1037/1528-3542.1.1.5
Easterbrook, J. A. (1959). The effect of emotion on cue utilization and the organization of behavior. Psychological Review, 66, 183–201. doi:10.1037/h0047707
Elfenbein, H. A., & Ambady, N. (2002). On the universality and cultural specificity of emotion recognition: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 128, 203–235. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.128.2.203
Hadley, C. B., & MacKay, D. G. (2006). Does emotion help or hinder immediate memory? Arousal versus priority-binding mechanisms. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 32, 79–88. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.32.1.79
Hamann, S. (2001). Cognitive and neural mechanisms of emotional memory. Trends in Cognitive Neuroscience, 5, 394–400. doi:10.1016/S1364-6613(00)01707-1
Harris, C. L., Ayçiçegi, A., & Gleason, J. B. (2003). Taboo words and reprimands elicit greater autonomic reactivity in a first language than in a second language. Aplied Psycholinguistics, 24, 561–579. doi:10.1017/S0142716403000286
Heuer, F., & Reisberg, D. (1990). Vivid memories of emotional events: The accuracy of remembered minutiae. Memory & Cognition, 18, 496–506.
Hockley, W. E., & Cristi, C. (1996a). Tests of encoding trade offs between item and associative information. Memory & Cognition, 24, 202–216.
Hockley, W. E., & Cristi, C. (1996b). Tests of the separate retrieval of item and associative information using a frequency-judgment task. Memory & Cognition, 24, 796–811.
Jay, T. (1992). Cursing in America: A psycholinguistic study of dirty language in the courts, in the movies, in the schoolyards, and on the streets. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Johnson, M. K., Hashtroudi, S., & Lindsay, D. S. (1993). Source monitoring. Psychological Bulletin, 114, 3–28. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.114.1.3
Jones, E. B., O’Gorman, J. G., & Byrne, B. (1987). Forgetting of word associates as a function of recall interval. British Journal of Psychology, 78, 79–89.
Just, M. A., Carpenter, P. A., & Woolley, J. D. (1982). Paradigms and processes in reading comprehension. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 111, 228–238. doi:10.1037/0096-3445.111.2.228
Kensinger, E. A. (2004). Remembering emotional experiences: The contribution of valence and arousal. Reviews in the Neurosciences, 15, 241–253.
Kensinger, E. A., Brierley, B., Medford, N., Growdon, J. H., & Corkin, S. (2002). Effects of normal aging and Alzheimer’s disease on emotional memory. Emotion, 2, 118–134. doi:10.1037/1528-3542.2.2.118
Kensinger, E. A., & Corkin, S. (2003). Memory enhancement for emotional words: Are emotional words more vividly remembered than neutral words? Memory & Cognition, 31, 1169–1180.
Kensinger, E. A., Garoff-Eaton, R. J., & Schacter, D. L. (2007). Effects of emotion on memory specificity: Memory trade-offs elicited by negative visually arousing stimuli. Journal of Memory & Language, 56, 575–591. doi:10.1016/j.jml.2006.05.004
Kensinger, E. A., Piguet, O., Krendl, A. C., & Corkin, S. (2005). Memory for contextual details: Effects of emotion and aging. Psychology & Aging, 20, 241–250. doi:10.1037/0882-7974.20.2.241
Kleinsmith, L. J., & Kaplan, S. (1963). Paired-associate learning as a function of arousal and interpolated interval. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 65, 190–193. doi:10.1037/h0040288
Kleinsmith, L. J., & Kaplan, S. (1964). Interaction of arousal and recall interval in nonsense syllable paired-associate learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 67, 124–126. doi:10.1037/h0045203
Kleinsmith, L. J., Kaplan, S., & Tarte, R. D. (1963). The relationship of arousal to short- and long-term verbal recall. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 17, 393–397. doi:10.1037/h0083278
LaBar, K. S., & Phelps, E. A. (1998). Arousal-mediated memory consolidation: Role of the medial temporal lobe in humans. Psychological Science, 9, 490–493. doi:10.1111/1467-9280.00090
Libkuman, T. M., Nichols-Whitehead, P., Griffith, J., & Thomas, R. (1999). Source of arousal and memory for detail. Memory & Cognition, 27, 166–190.
Libkuman, T. M., Stabler, C. L., & Otani, H. (2004). Arousal, valence, and memory for detail. Memory, 12, 237–247. doi:10.1080/09658210244000630
Loftus, E. F., Loftus, G. R., & Messo, J. (1987). Some facts about “weapon focus”. Law & Human Behavior, 11, 55–62. doi:10.1007/BF01044839
MacKay, D. G., & Ahmetzanov, M. V. (2005). Emotion, memory, and attention in the taboo Stroop paradigm. Psychological Science, 16, 25–32. doi:10.1111/j.0956-7976.2005.00776.x
MacKay, D. G., Shafto, M., Taylor, J. K., Marian, D. E., Abrams, L., &Dyer, J. R. (2004). Relations between emotion, memory, and attention: Evidence from taboo Stroop, lexical decision, and immediate memory tasks. Memory & Cognition, 32, 474–488.
Mather, M. (2007). Emotional arousal and memory binding: An object-based framework. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2, 33–52. doi:10.1111/j.1745-6916.2007.00028.x
Mather, M., & Nesmith, K. (2008). Arousal-enhanced location memory for pictures. Journal of Memory & Language, 58, 449–464. doi:10.1016/j.jml.2007.01.004
Mathewson, K. J., Arnell, K. M., & Mansfield, C. A. (2008). Capturing and holding attention: The impact of emotional words in rapid serial visual presentation. Memory & Cognition, 36, 182–200. doi:10.3758/MC.36.1.182
Medford, N., Phillips, M. L., Brierley, B., Brammer, M., Bullmore, E. T., & David, A. S. (2005). Emotional memory: Separating content and context. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, 138, 247–258. doi:10.1016/j.pscychresns.2004.10.004
Parkin, A. J., Lewinsohn, J., & Folkard, S. (1982). The influence of emotion on immediate and delayed retention: Levinger and Clark reconsidered. British Journal of Psychology, 73, 389–393.
Phelps, E. A. (2004). Human emotion and memory: Interactions of the amygdala and hippocampal complex. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 14, 198–202. doi:10.1016/j.conb.2004.03.015
Phelps, E. A., LaBar, K. S., & Spencer, D. D. (1997). Memory for emotional words following unilateral temporal lobectomy. Brain & Cognition, 35, 85–109. doi:10.1006/brcg.1997.0929
Reisberg, D., & Hertel, P. (Eds.) (2004). Memory and emotion. New York: Oxford University Press.
Schürer-Necker, E. (1990). Arousal and paired-associate learning: Evidence refuting the action decrement theory of Walker and Tarte (1963). Pavlovian Journal of Biological Science, 25, 195–200.
Sharot, T., & Phelps, E. A. (2004). How arousal modulates memory: Disentangling the effects of attention and retention. Cognitive, Affective, &Behavioral Neuroscience, 4, 294–306. doi:10.3758/CABN.4.3.294
Siegrist, M. (1995). Effects of taboo words on color-naming performance on a Stroop test. Perceptual & Motor Skills, 81, 1119–1122.
Snodgrass, J. G., & Corwin, J. (1988). Pragmatics of measuring recognition memory: Applications to dementia and amnesia. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 117, 34–50. doi:10.1037/0096-3445.117.1.34
Tulving, E., & Thomson, D. M. (1973). Encoding specificity and retrieval processes in episodic memory. Psychological Review, 80, 352–373. doi:10.1037/h0020071
Wood, A. M., Maltby, J., Stewart, N., Linley, P. A., & Joseph, S. (2008). A social-cognitive model of trait and state levels of gratitude. Emotion, 8, 281–290. doi:10.1037/1528-3542.8.2.281
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
The first experiment reported in this article was submitted to the Department of Psychology at Middlebury College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with honors in psychology by R.G. Portions of this research were supported by Grant 1R15 MH077665 from the National Institutes of Health.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Guillet, R., Arndt, J. Taboo words: The effect of emotion on memory for peripheral information. Memory & Cognition 37, 866–879 (2009). https://doi.org/10.3758/MC.37.6.866
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/MC.37.6.866