The Effects Of Collaboration And Retrieval Tasks On Memory For Emotional Words

Collaboration in memory is a double-edged sword: it can elicit not only the detrimental effect of collaborative inhibition(i.e.,collaborative groups performed inferior to nominal groups),but also several beneficial effects,such as error pruning and post-collaborative memory benefit,these effects are confirmed in both item memory and source memory.Similar to neutral stimuli,such phenomena have also been demonstrated in emotional ones,and some investigators have confirmed stronger collaborative inhibition in emotional stimuli.However,existing collaborative memory research has all focused on the comparison between neutral stimuli and emotional ones,no research has concerned the interaction between them in collaborative memory.Emotional stimuli are usually better remembered than neutral ones,such difference is referred to as emotionally enhanced memory(EEM)effect.Some studies have demonstrated that enhanced memory of emotional stimuli would correspondingly inhibit memory for preceding and following studied neutral ones,and proposed the emotional carryover effect.However,it remains to be verified in source retrieval task.To address these issues,we combined the collaborative memory paradigm with the procedure of emotional carryover effect to investigate the effect of collaboration on memory for emotional words,and further discriminated it between item memory and source memory tasks.Therein,Experiment 1 mainly explored the occurrence of collaboration and retrieval tasks on memory for emotional words.Experiment 2 further focused on the frequency of collaboration on memory for emotional words.The current study set up two experiments,where words of different emotionality served as materials,studying with the emotional timeout procedure: S1(neutral words)-S2(taboo,negative,neutral,or positive words)-S3(neutral words).Participants were asked to remember the word(item memory)together with its displayed color(source memory).Three recall tests(Recall 1,Recall 2,and Recall 3)as well as a recognition test were conducted subsequently,both words and its displayed colors were retrieved.In Experiment 1,participants in the collaborative groups completed the retrieval tasks collaboratively in a free-flowing way for one time.Experiment 2examined the effect of frequency of collaboration on memory for emotional words.Participants in the collaborative groups completed the retrieval tasks collaboratively for twice.Results of Experiment 1 recorded no collaborative inhibition,and significant collaborative facilitation for taboo words was found.The error pruning was stably observed during ongoing and lasting collaboration in item memory task while it faded away post-collaboration in source memory circumstance.Significant beneficial effects of collaboration on subsequent individual memory were demonstrated in item memory,such as post-collaborative memory benefit,picked-up effect and shared memory,and the effects were stronger in taboo words for S2,while S1 and S3 were insensitive to the emotionality of S2.Besides,collaboration promoted the EEM effect,which was much stably confirmed in item memory than source memory.The directions of emotional carryover effect were distinct: it performed as emotional anterograde memory inhibition in item memory while emotional retrograde memory inhibition in source memory,which were not susceptible to collaboration.Results of Experiment 2showed that significant collaborative inhibition was observed for negative words in item memory,while collaborative facilitation was observed in source memory.Error pruning was stable in both retrieval tasks during three recall tests,and it was much stronger than Experiment 1,illustrating increased frequency of collaboration could enhance error pruning.In addition,increased frequency of collaboration also enhanced post-collaborative memory benefit and shared memory,the EEM effect and emotional carryover effect were similar to Experiment 1.The main conclusions of the current study are as follows:(1)Collaboration both hurts and helps memory(collaborative inhibition;error pruning,post-collaborative memory benefit and shared memory),participants’ preferred retrieval strategies are easily disrupted by the presence of others during collaboration,which correspondingly produces the collaborative inhibition.However,re-exposure,relearning,cross cueing and error pruning in collaborative remembering can promote individual recall post-collaboration.Such effects are still existing in the interaction between emotional stimuli and neutral ones,which supports the retrieval strategy disruption hypothesis.(2)The retrieval tasks impact the memory for emotional words.Emotional stimuli take priority over neutral ones during different phases of memory(i.e.,encoding,storage,and retrieval),therefore,enhanced memory for emotional stimuli can inhibit memory for preceding and following studied neutral ones,and such effect is moderated by retrieval tasks,which supported the arousal-biased competition model and the dual-process model.(3)With the increased frequency of collaboration,the re-exposure is stronger,and the groups’ organizational structure is more stable.