The Impact of Emotion on Associative Memory
type: CreativeWork
description: The effect of emotion on associative memory remains unclear. Inconsistent findings in the literature are leading to theories with opposite predictions. Obtaining a clearer view of the impact of emotion on associative memory remains of crucial importance, particularly as it could shed light on the mechanisms leading to the emergence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD is a condition which may develop following exposure to a traumatic event and is characterised by intrusive memories and disorganised recall of the trauma. One theory about PTSD, the dual representation account, posits that PTSD symptoms arise due to an inability to store the trauma within a coherent spatiotemporal representation because of a disrupted associative memory for the trauma. While it is clear that emotion impacts memory, the debate persists regarding reduced associative memory for an emotional situation. As reviewed in Chapter 1, studies with healthy volunteers revealed discrepant findings and computational models looking at the impact of emotion on memory simulate robust binding between emotional items and their context. The primary objective of this thesis is to clarify the confused picture of the emotional effect on associative memory. To achieve that, Chapter 2 disentangles various types of associative memory tested in past literature and introduces a novel paradigm to assess them within the same experiment. This chapter investigates whether emotion impacts differently order memory, temporal source memory, contextual memory, and subjective recollection. Findings indicate that emotion may decrease contextual memory but does not affect order memory, temporal source memory and subjective recollection. Understanding the impact of emotion on associative memory may be challenging because of the various types of associative memory which may be relying on different mechanisms. However, the discrepant results in the literature may also be due to additional factors. For instance, integrat…
abstract: The effect of emotion on associative memory remains unclear. Inconsistent findings in the literature are leading to theories with opposite predictions. Obtaining a clearer view of the impact of emotion on associative memory remains of crucial importance, particularly as it could shed light on the mechanisms leading to the emergence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD is a condition which may develop following exposure to a traumatic event and is characterised by intrusive memories and disorganised recall of the trauma. One theory about PTSD, the dual representation account, posits that PTSD symptoms arise due to an inability to store the trauma within a coherent spatiotemporal representation because of a disrupted associative memory for the trauma. While it is clear that emotion impacts memory, the debate persists regarding reduced associative memory for an emotional situation. As reviewed in Chapter 1, studies with healthy volunteers revealed discrepant findings and computational models looking at the impact of emotion on memory simulate robust binding between emotional items and their context. The primary objective of this thesis is to clarify the confused picture of the emotional effect on associative memory. To achieve that, Chapter 2 disentangles various types of associative memory tested in past literature and introduces a novel paradigm to assess them within the same experiment. This chapter investigates whether emotion impacts differently order memory, temporal source memory, contextual memory, and subjective recollection. Findings indicate that emotion may decrease contextual memory but does not affect order memory, temporal source memory and subjective recollection. Understanding the impact of emotion on associative memory may be challenging because of the various types of associative memory which may be relying on different mechanisms. However, the discrepant results in the literature may also be due to additional factors. For instance, integrat…
author: de Montpellier, Emilie
language: eng
keywords: associative memory, emotion, episodic memory, evaluative conditioning, hippocampal memory, striatal memory
license: https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/74b0c670-d25c-4fc9-9723-10673cbec9be/download
license: https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/
date published: 2024-05-10
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:24:03Z
provider: Cambridge University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Cambridge

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.17863/CAM.112670