![\"memory-block\"](\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/files\/2014\/11\/memory-block.jpg\")
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The study is entitled, The Power of Emotion Versus the Power of Suggestion: Memory for Emotional Events in the Misinformation Paradigm. \u201cWhat\u2019s the misinformation paradigm?\u201d you might ask. The misinformation paradigm is a scientific process used in experiments to test the phenomenon of false memories. Participants first witness an event through pictures or video. They are then given misleading information on what they\u2019ve seen, most effectively presented in the form of questions to the participant. A final memory test on the original photos or video tests what the participants remember, both true and false memories. A form of this process was used in this experiment. The authors describe that the emotional nature of an event consists of two main features, valence and arousal. Valence refers to the range of how positive or negative and emotion is, and arousal is the degree of activation that it produces. Valence and activation were both manipulated in this experiment to determine their effects on memory and false memory.<\/p>\n
The procedure used was relatively simple. Participants were shown six photographs, told to envision themselves in the photograph and talk for thirty seconds about what was going on. The six pictures used were taken from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS), which holds over 1,000 photographs used in experiments like these to evoke human emotion. The pictures varied in arousal and valence. After viewing and talking about the pictures then engaging in a filler task, participants were asked a series of questions about what they saw. Half of the participants were asked questions about actual things they saw, and the other half were asked the same questions, but with misleading information imbedded in them.<\/p>\n
Example: These questions were asked about central and peripheral information of the photographs (ie. The main person\/thing in the photograph and the objects in the background). After another filler task, a final memory test was given in the form of statements that the participant labeled true or false. Subjects were then asked to rate each picture on it\u2019s valence and arousal, followed by a debriefing of the experiment and it\u2019s true purpose.<\/p>\n The results support the theory that arousal improves memory, but also show that suggestion is more powerful than emotion. Memory of central information was the most accurate with high arousal and low valence, meaning very emotional with a negative context. On the other hand, Peripheral information was remembered worse with this low valence. This is known as the narrowing effect. When faced with a high arousal, low valence situation, people focus on the central information and remember it better than peripheral information, which is unaffected, or sometimes impaired. Discussed in the paper, this effect can be attributed to evolutionary factors. In the face of fear or danger, humans use their cognitive resources to focus on the source of that fear or danger, not the peripheral features. This improved memory for negative emotional events disappears with the addition of misleading information. The misinformation effect was seen strongest in the peripheral memories of highly emotional and negative events. It is important to note that highly emotional events that were neutral and positive did not show the same effect regarding the peripheral information.<\/p>\n Overall, this study shows that the power of suggestion is very influential on our memories, especially in regards to emotional events. Studies like this are important in understanding and improving eyewitness testimonies and general knowledge of our memories.<\/p>\n References:<\/p>\n Damme, I. V. & Smets, K (2014) PsychArticles Emotion Vol 14(2) The power of emotion versus the power of suggestion: Memory for emotional events in the misinformation paradigm.<\/p>\n Picture – Gizmag.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How well do you remember the highly emotional events of your life? People generally hold strong and vivid memories of these events, both happy, like one\u2019s first kiss, or sad like the death of a family member. Research has shown that memories are highly susceptible to distortion through time and suggestion. Emotion plays a large […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5624,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[80215],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1824"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5624"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1824"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3778,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1824\/revisions\/3778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\u201cDid you see the white T-shirt the man was wearing underneath his shirt?\u201d<\/em>
\n vs.<\/em>
\n \u201cDid you see the white T-shirt the man was wearing underneath his striped shirt?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n