The Complex Relationship Between Memory and Emotion

In our daily life, we rely on our memory to fully work. We either need to recall something so trivial such as where we left our secrets, or we require to keep in mind names of college schoolmates that we have not seen for a long time. Provided this fact, we ask, what precisely is memory, what are the processes included in this cognitive function, and what are the factors that impact our memory?

Memory is said to be the procedure and means by which we maintain details and in the future recover that same info from storage when we need it in the present (Bjorklund, Schneider, & & Hernandez Blasi, 2003; Crowder, 1976; Tulving & & Craik, 2000).

When we experience something, we do not totally store all the info in our memory. Studies reveal that there are different techniques that help in sufficient memory retention. There are likewise a number of vibrant theories about memory being a storage space for all our previous experiences which include sensory and informative data.

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In addition, there are also different processes through which we could gain access to, recall, remember, or recognize these data in our memory. Although there are comprehensive research study studies about memory and its processes, it is fascinating to take a look at some factors that aid or prevent memory recall and retention. Among these elements which are provided particular interest and attention is the role of emotion on our memory. There are circumstances when we recall a part of our memory in vivid clarity as if it is reenacted in our minds and obtained in complete information.

This is what we call flashbulb memory (Brown & & Kulik, 1977). The factor behind this phenomenon is that the occasion that occurred might be so mentally effective that it ended up being highly retained in our memory. In the occasion that you experience something that has a really strong emotional effect, you tend to remember the information more clearly and when you require to retrieve that certain info, you would be able to easily remember it properly (Bohannon, 1988).

This could manifest in both the explicit and implicit memory, with the former requiring the person to deliberately pull out the memory from storage and put it out in consciousness, and the latter being an automatic response to the emotional trigger. To further illustrate the capacity of affect to influence memory, a study was made by Heuer and Reisberg in 1990 which showed that materials which show more emotion than similar ones with less emotional impact are more likely to be stored in one’s memory and could be therefore retrieved easily in general and in detail as well (Christianson, 1992).

Furthermore, it was also found that the mood or emotion where we were in when a specific situation happened would most likely serve as a retrieval cue when we experience the same mood in the present (Baddeley, 1989). For an instance, when we experience a certain situation when we are in a state of sadness, we would most likely remember the memory of the same experience when we are placed in the same emotional state. This is called the memory-dependent memory effects (Christianson, 1992). Biologically-speaking, the interaction between memory and affect could be attributed to certain processes in various parts of the brain.

Brain processes involved in the evaluation of rewards and punishments are directly related to affect in the sense that it depends upon the emotional impact of a certain situation to be determined if it is a form of a compensation or a penalty (Rolls, 2000). Because of this, it could be inferred that since emotion influences memory processes, data-driven information and past situations are stored in our memory in the basis of a reward-punishment system. Essentially, when a certain event, person, place, or thing is categorized as something rewarding, it could be more easily encoded and retrieved.

This categorization and selection happens in the amygdala, which is the center of emotional processing, and the data that get to pass through and be encoded encompass the mechanism in the hippocampus, which is on the other hand related to memory. Emotions disinhibit the barrier that the CA3 hippocampal area creates and so the data inputs could then proceed to the prefrontal cerebral cortex to be stored in memory (Neugebauer, et al. , 1999). It is also found in the study by Fast, et al. (1999) that the amygdaloid complex is primarily responsible with the emotional mechanism which affects memory retrieval.

Subjects who have lesions in the amygdalo-hippocampal area do not only suffer from amnesia, but they also show significant impairments in memory process related with emotional arousal. The reason behind this is that the AC organizes the information that are encoded, stored, and retrieved in our memory. Another effect that emotion has on memory is what is called by Christianson (1992) as resource allocation effects, which is the impairment of the memory processing when a person experience an extreme or negative emotion or mood during encoding or retrieval.

In this case, the person might find it difficult to access his/her memory of a certain situation, person, thing, or place because it has become a somewhat traumatic experience and the emotion that goes with it blocks the memory process. There are also some contradicting views that affect could not facilitate the retrieval or encoding of memory information. Some studies say that experiencing a negative emotion, for an instance, could prevent the person from remembering the details of a certain situation or event.

This is the reason why most researchers focus on the determinants and factors which would tell what specific kind of data or information does emotion facilitate or impede. Although most of the existing studies focus on the effects of emotion on the memory processes, there are also some minor studies which show that memories of past experiences affect the present mood or emotional state of a person (Christianson, 1992). Though this angle is not yet looked at more closely by researchers, we most of the time experience this feeling, which we sometimes call nostalgia.

Because memory and emotion are such complex topics when studied on their own, it is a more complicated feat to research on the interaction of the two concepts and their effect on each other. However, a lot of studies are being made in order to understand better these two psychological phenomena when they intertwine in their processes and how they affect the human psyche.

References

Baddeley, A. D. (1989). The psychology of remembering and forgetting. In T. Butler (Ed. ) Memory: History, culture and the mind. London: Basil Blackwell. Bjorklund, D. F. , Schneider, W., & Hernandez Blasi, C. (2003). Memory. In L. Nadel (Ed. ), Encyclopedia of cognitive science, 2, p. 1059-1065. Nature Publishing Group. Bohannon, J. (1988). Flashbulb memories for the space shuttle disaster: A tale of two theories. Cognition, 29(2), p. 179-196. Brown, R. & Kulik, J. (1977). Flashbulb memories. Cognition, 5, p. 73-99. Christianson, S. (1992). The handbook of emotion and memory: research and theory. Crowder, R. G. (1976). Principles of learning and memory. Erlbaum. Fast, K. , Fujiwara, E. , Grubich, C. , Markowitsch, H. J. , & Herrmann, M. (1999).

Role of the amygdala in emotional memory. Memory and Emotion. p. 430. Neugebauer, A. , Calabrese, P. , Schmieder, K. , Harders, A. , Ferri, D. & Gehlen, W. (1999). Memory and emotion processing in healthy subjects, focal brain-damaged and patients with Alzheimer’s disease. Memory and Emotion. p. 113. Rolls, E. T. (2000). Precis of the brain and emotion. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 23. p. 177-191. Sternberg, R. J. (2006). Cognitive psychology. Singapore: Thomson Wadsworth. Tulving, E. , & Craik, F. I. M. (Eds. ) (2000). The Oxford handbook of memory. New York: Oxford University Press.