{"title":"Recognition memory for specific emotion words: anger, fear, and disgust","authors":"Aycan Kapucu, Caren M. Rotello, Elif Yüvrük","doi":"10.1007/s11031-024-10084-z","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Negative emotional stimuli are typically recognized more accurately and with a more liberal response bias than neutral stimuli. We assessed whether those effects on recognition memory are present at similar magnitudes for specific negative emotions by contrasting emotions that theoretically vary across different emotional dimensions. Although anger, fear, and disgust are all highly-arousing and negative emotions, they differ in motivational tendencies and/or appraisal properties such as (un)certainty about the source or the consequence of emotion: Fear and disgust trigger avoidance motivation, whereas anger triggers approach motivation (Carver, C. S., & Harmon-Jones, E. (2009). Anger is an approach-related affect: evidence and implications. Psychological Bulletin, 135(2), 183–204.). Also, anger and disgust are associated with high certainty, but fear is associated with low certainty (Lerner, J. S., & Keltner, D. (2000). Beyond valence: Toward a model of emotion-specific influences on judgment and choice. Cognition & Emotion, 14(4), 473–493.). In two experiments, participants studied lists of negative (anger-, fear-, or disgust-related) and neutral words and then completed a delayed recognition memory test. In both experiments, fear-related words showed no recognition memory advantage compared to neutral words, while anger-related words were recognized less well than neutral words. Disgust-related words were better recognized than their neutral counterparts, but only when within-subject design was employed in Experiment 2. Therefore, neither effect could solely be attributed to the motivational or certainty-related properties of emotions. Across all of the specific emotions, negative words led to large liberal bias shifts in both experiments. Notably, this liberal bias was more pronounced for disgust-related words in Experiment 2. Overall, although motivational/appraisal differences across specific negative emotions affected recognition memory, these effects could not be exclusively attributed to a particular emotion dimension. Instead, these effects might be best understood through unique adaptive properties inherent to each specific emotion.</p>","PeriodicalId":48282,"journal":{"name":"Motivation and Emotion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.7000,"publicationDate":"2024-08-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Motivation and Emotion","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-024-10084-z","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, EXPERIMENTAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Negative emotional stimuli are typically recognized more accurately and with a more liberal response bias than neutral stimuli. We assessed whether those effects on recognition memory are present at similar magnitudes for specific negative emotions by contrasting emotions that theoretically vary across different emotional dimensions. Although anger, fear, and disgust are all highly-arousing and negative emotions, they differ in motivational tendencies and/or appraisal properties such as (un)certainty about the source or the consequence of emotion: Fear and disgust trigger avoidance motivation, whereas anger triggers approach motivation (Carver, C. S., & Harmon-Jones, E. (2009). Anger is an approach-related affect: evidence and implications. Psychological Bulletin, 135(2), 183–204.). Also, anger and disgust are associated with high certainty, but fear is associated with low certainty (Lerner, J. S., & Keltner, D. (2000). Beyond valence: Toward a model of emotion-specific influences on judgment and choice. Cognition & Emotion, 14(4), 473–493.). In two experiments, participants studied lists of negative (anger-, fear-, or disgust-related) and neutral words and then completed a delayed recognition memory test. In both experiments, fear-related words showed no recognition memory advantage compared to neutral words, while anger-related words were recognized less well than neutral words. Disgust-related words were better recognized than their neutral counterparts, but only when within-subject design was employed in Experiment 2. Therefore, neither effect could solely be attributed to the motivational or certainty-related properties of emotions. Across all of the specific emotions, negative words led to large liberal bias shifts in both experiments. Notably, this liberal bias was more pronounced for disgust-related words in Experiment 2. Overall, although motivational/appraisal differences across specific negative emotions affected recognition memory, these effects could not be exclusively attributed to a particular emotion dimension. Instead, these effects might be best understood through unique adaptive properties inherent to each specific emotion.
与中性刺激相比,负面情绪刺激的识别通常更准确,反应偏差也更宽松。我们通过对比理论上在不同情绪维度上存在差异的情绪,来评估这些对识别记忆的影响是否在特定负面情绪中以相似的幅度存在。虽然愤怒、恐惧和厌恶都是高度唤醒的消极情绪,但它们在动机倾向和/或评价属性(如对情绪来源或后果的(不)确定性)方面存在差异:恐惧和厌恶会引发回避动机,而愤怒则会引发接近动机(Carver, C. S., & Harmon-Jones, E. (2009))。愤怒是一种与接近有关的情绪:证据与影响》。Psychological Bulletin, 135(2), 183-204)。此外,愤怒和厌恶与高确定性相关,但恐惧与低确定性相关(Lerner, J. S., & Keltner, D. (2000)。超越情绪:走向情绪对判断和选择的特定影响模型。认知与情感》,14(4),473-493)。在两项实验中,受试者研究了负面(愤怒、恐惧或厌恶相关)和中性词语列表,然后完成了延迟识别记忆测试。在这两项实验中,与中性词相比,与恐惧相关的词在识别记忆方面没有优势,而与愤怒相关的词的识别率则低于中性词。与厌恶相关的词语比中性词语的识别能力更强,但只有在实验 2 中采用了被试内设计时才会出现这种情况。因此,这两种效应都不能完全归因于情绪的动机或确定性相关属性。在所有的特定情绪中,消极词语在两个实验中都导致了较大的自由主义偏差。值得注意的是,在实验 2 中,这种自由偏向在与厌恶相关的词语中更为明显。总之,尽管特定负面情绪的动机/评价差异会影响识别记忆,但这些效应并不能完全归因于特定的情绪维度。相反,这些效应最好通过每种特定情绪固有的独特适应性来理解。
期刊介绍:
Motivation and Emotion publishes articles on human motivational and emotional phenomena that make theoretical advances by linking empirical findings to underlying processes. Submissions should focus on key problems in motivation and emotion, and, if using non-human participants, should contribute to theories concerning human behavior. Articles should be explanatory rather than merely descriptive, providing the data necessary to understand the origins of motivation and emotion, to explicate why, how, and under what conditions motivational and emotional states change, and to document that these processes are important to human functioning.A range of methodological approaches are welcome, with methodological rigor as the key criterion. Manuscripts that rely exclusively on self-report data are appropriate, but published articles tend to be those that rely on objective measures (e.g., behavioral observations, psychophysiological responses, reaction times, brain activity, and performance or achievement indicators) either singly or combination with self-report data.The journal generally does not publish scale development and validation articles. However, it is open to articles that focus on the post-validation contribution that a new measure can make. Scale development and validation work therefore may be submitted if it is used as a necessary prerequisite to follow-up studies that demonstrate the importance of the new scale in making a theoretical advance.