Examining Memory in the Context of Emotion and Motivation
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SOCIAL COGNITION (J BEADLE, SECTION EDITOR)
Examining Memory in the Context of Emotion and Motivation Holly J. Bowen 1 Accepted: 20 October 2020 # Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract Purpose of the Review In this review, I summarize the limited literature that includes manipulations of both emotion and motivation within the same experiment to examine their interactive and distinct effects on episodic memory. I position this work within the context of theories according to which emotion and motivation are inseparable, as well as other theories that view these constructs as dissociable. Recent Findings Memory studies that manipulate emotion and motivation within the same trial provide support for theories that view them as separate constructs. Although separate constructs, studies that compare emotion and motivation, indicate they have similar effects on memory, but the extent of this similarity may depend on affective valence, task-relevance, and retention interval. Summary Investigating the behavioral effects of emotion and motivation on memory can inform our theoretical understanding of these constructs, with value for practical and clinical applications ranging from academic performance to psychopathology. Keywords Memory . Emotion . Motivation . Reward . Valence
Introduction A quote attributed to novelist Salman Rushdie states, “memory is a way of telling you what’s important to you” [1]. From a scientific perspective, Rushdie has it backwards. Rather than memory telling you what’s important, researchers have discovered that what is important, and carries affective and motivational significance, is more likely to be encoded and stored in memory. Emotion and motivation are the two most studied types of affective significance in the memory literature, but these lines of research rarely inform each other (see Fig. 1, top panel). A recent review paper [2••] has considered the effects of reward and emotion as related constructs within the broader context of motivated cognition. The goal of this review is to focus on the limited literature intentionally manipulating both emotion and motivation, within the same paradigm, to connect and compare their effects on episodic memory—defined as memory for events that can be recollected within a temporal
and spatial context. In this paper, I conceive of emotion as positive or negative affect that is induced by an external stimulus in the environment, and motivation as the urge to engage in goal-directed behavior to obtain a reward or avoid punishment. Both emotion-modulated and motivation-modulated memories are considered to be adaptive. For example, stimuli that evoke feelings of fear like a dangerous animal, or information that must be studied to achieve a certain grade, will be better remembered than neutral or unimportant information because these memories contribute to survival, current and future goals, and well-being. I will discuss general theories of emotion and motivation to argue that studying their separate and combined effects on memory may advance our
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