The Effect Of Emotional Learning On Memory For Its Preceding And Subsequent Events

The research on emotion and cognition has been concerned by many psychologists.Memory is an important part of individual cognition process.It is essential to explore the relationship between emotion and memory.Prior work had focused on the impact of emotion on different types of memory.Here we assessed the impact of emotional learning on memory for proceeding,during and subsequent information,the effects of the relationship between different phases(related/irrelevant)on memory.The research was divided into three parts: Firstly,we needed to select the experimental materials for different phases,including emotional materials,neutral related materials,and neutral unrelated materials;Secondly,Study 1 seted two experimental groups and two control groups,which aimed to investigate the effect of emotion on memory for previously and subsequently encountered irrelevant/relevant stimuli.The separately analysis for the data of two experimental groups was conducted,as well as the comparison of experimental groups and control groups.Finally,Study 2 explored the impact of sleep on how emotional learning influence previous irrelevant memory,by comparison of experimental group and control group.Here we verified whether emotional learning effect previous memory.To sum up,we found that:First,the emotional learning phase aroused individual's physiological state(the skin conductance level),and the activation could last for several minutes,at least for the later stage of neutral learning;Second,individual had a better memory of emotional events.Emotion could enhance our memory for subsequent neutral information which occured after emotional learning.When subsequent information related to emotional events,the emotional memory enhancement effect might be partially damaged;Third,emotional learning could awaken our memory network.Not only could it enhance emotional memory,but also bring a memory enhancement effect for both previous and subsequent neutral events.The degree of memory enhancement was influenced by the relationship of different information.Based on the findings above,after 24-hour memory consolidation,we proposed that emotional learning would not only enhance our memory for later unrelated/related events,but also increase previous unrelated/related memory.The degree of enhancement was influenced by the relationship between different phases.