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| Remembering Bad Times Better Than The Good |
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| SciMed - Soc & Psych | |||
| TS-Si News Service | |||
| Thursday, 30 August 2007 19:00 | |||
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When emotion is likely to reduce inconsistencies of memory
Boston, MA, USA. Researchers are beginning to understand why we remember events that carry negative emotional weight. Do you remember exactly where you were when you learned of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks? For most people, the answer to this question is probably yes.
Researchers have extensively examined whether emotional memories contain more accurate detail than nonemotional memories. The question hs been whether individuals believe they accurately remember emotional experiences.
 Boston College psychologist, Elizabeth Kensinger, and her colleagues explain when emotion is likely to reduce our memory inconsistencies. Her research in Current Directions in Psychological Science shows that whether an event is pleasurable or aversive seems to be a critical to determining the accuracy with which the event is remembered. Negative events are remembered in greater detail than positive ones.
Kensinger reviews evidence that negative emotion enhances not only the subjective vividness of a memory but also the likelihood of remembering some (but not all) event details. For example, after seeing a man on a street holding a gun, people remember the gun vividly, but they forget the details of the street.
Neuroimaging studies report increased cellular activity in emotion-processing regions when experiencing a negative event. The evidence from Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) points to the emotion-processing regions of the brain, particularly the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex.
The more activity in the orbitofrontal cortex and the amygdala, the more likely an individual is to remember details intrinsically linked to the emotional aspect of the event, such as the exact appearance of the gun.
Kensinger argues that recognizing the effects of negative emotion on memory for detail may, at some point, save our lives by guiding our actions and allowing us to plan for similar future occurrences.
“These benefits make sense within an evolutionary framework,” writes Kensinger. “It is logical that attention would be focused on potentially threatening information.”
Current Directions in Psychological Science is a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
Negative Emotion Enhances Memory Accuracy: Behavioral and Neuroimaging Evidence. Elizabeth A. Kensinger (2007). Current Directions in Psychological Science 16 (4), 213–218. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8721.2007.00506.x.
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The TS-Si News Service
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are collaborations of TS-Si officials, staff, contributors, and corresponding institutions. Contents do not necessarily convey official positions of
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