The Effect Of Guilt On Working Memory Updating

Guilt emotions can have a negative impact on a person’s physical and psychological well-being.Timely and correct recognition of this negative emotional experience by individuals and appropriate adjustment can promote their physical and mental health.At the same time,the negative emotional state of individuals will also consume memory resources related to working memory tasks,and the capacity of working memory system is limited,which can not be separated from the role of working memory refresh,and can effectively update the content in the processing system.In addition,the study of the relationship between negative emotion and working memory refresh function will help enrich the research and theory in the field of emotion and cognition.Study 1 used interpersonal interaction games to induce emotions,focusing on the impact of guilt emotional state on speech and spatial tasks,using 2(emotional state group: guilt group,control group)× 2(Task Type: Verbal,Space)Hybrid Experimental Design.The results showed that participants with guilt emotions had longer reaction times on spatial tasks than on verbal tasks.Study 2,based on study 1,started with the cognitive load of tasks,combined verbal and spatial tasks to increase cognitive load,explored the impact of cognitive load on working memory refresh,and adopted 2(emotional state group: guilt group,control group)× 2(Cognitive load: high,low)mixed experimental design.The results showed that the reaction time under high cognitive load was significantly longer than that under low cognitive load,and its accuracy was significantly lower than that under low cognitive load tasks.However,there was no significant difference in accuracy and reaction time between the emotional state group and high cognitive load.Study 3,based on study 2,started with the intensity of guilt,used self-report to induce guilt and explore the impact of high guilt intensity on working memory updating.The results showed that the accuracy rate of the guilt group was significantly lower than that of the control group,and the accuracy rate of the low cognitive load was significantly higher than that of the high cognitive load.In terms of reaction time,only the low cognitive load had shorter reaction time than the high cognitive load task.The following conclusions are drawn from this study:(1)Guilt affects the task of spatial working memory refresh.(2)Under different cognitive loads,guilt has no effect on different types of working memory refresh tasks.(3)The intensity of guilt has no effect on high cognitive load tasks.