Remembering English Words

1________2________3________4________5________6________7

Very Very

Pleasant Unpleasant

On a sheet of paper, write each of the words on page 131. Then rate each word, using the above scale.

Encoding in Long-Term Memory 131

Cognitive psychologists acknowledge that emotion and mood can influence our cognitive processes. Let’s consider two ways in which emotion and mood can affect our memory:

1. We typically remember pleasant stimuli more accurately than other stimuli; 2. We typically recall material more accurately if our mood matches the emotional

nature of the material, an effect called mood congruence.

Memory for Items Differing in Emotion. In 1978, my coauthor and I proposed that the people’s enhanced recall of pleasant items is part of a more general Pollyanna Principle (Matlin & Stang, 1978). The Pollyanna Principle states that pleasant items are usually processed more efficiently and more accurately than less pleasant items. The principle holds true for a wide variety of phenomena in perception, language, and decision making (Matlin, 2004). However, our focus in this chapter is on long-term memory. Let’s con- sider several ways in which the emotional nature of the stimuli can influence memory.

1. More accurate recall for pleasant items. For nearly a century, psychologists have been interested in the way that emotional tone can influence memory (e.g., Balch, 2006b; Hollingworth, 1910; Thompson et al., 1996). In a typical study, people learn lists of words that are pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant. Then their recall is tested after a delay of several minutes to several months. In a review of the literature, we found that

1. Hope 2. Fool 3. Style 4. Interest 5. Quarrel 6. Hunger 7. Cure 8. Beauty 9. Loss 10. Trust 11. Theft 12. Liberty 13. Decay 14. Comfort 15. Benefit 16. Trouble 17. Insult 18. Praise 19. Panic 20. Grudge 21. Travel 22. Fraud 23. Wisdom 24. Rumble

Now cover up this list for the remainder of the demonstration. Take a break for a few minutes. Then write down as many words as you can recall. Count how many of the following words you remembered correctly: Hope, Style, Interest, Cure, Beauty, Trust, Liberty, Comfort, Benefit, Praise, Travel, Wisdom.

Then count how many of the following words you remembered correctly: Fool, Quarrel, Hunger, Loss, Theft, Decay, Trouble, Insult, Panic, Grudge, Fraud, Rumble.

Did you recall more from the first category or the second category?

pleasant items are often recalled better than negative items, particularly if the delay is long (Matlin, 2004; Matlin & Stang, 1978). For example, in 39 of the 52 studies that we located on long-term memory, pleasant items were recalled significantly more accu- rately than unpleasant items. Incidentally, neutral items are usually recalled least accu- rately of all, suggesting that the intensity of an item’s emotional tone is also important (Bohanek et al., 2005; Talarico et al., 2004).

Demonstration 5.2 is a simplified version of a study conducted by William Balch (2006b). Check back to page 131 and count how many pleasant words you recalled from this list: 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 10, 12, 14, 15, 18, 21, 23. Then count how many words you recalled from this list of unpleasant words: 2, 5, 6, 9, 11, 13, 16, 17, 19, 20, 22, 23. Was your recall more accurate for the pleasant words than for the unpleasant words? When Balch tested introductory psychology students, he found that they recalled significantly more of the positive words.

Furthermore, people generally recall pleasant events more accurately than unpleasant events (Mather, 2006; Walker et al., 1997). One potential explanation is that people’s memory for pleasant events is more vivid and clear than for unpleasant events (D’Argembeau et al., 2003; Levine & Bluck, 2004). A related finding is that drivers quickly forget their near-accidents; in fact, they remember only 20% of these accidents just two weeks later (Chapman & Underwood, 2000).

2. More accurate recall for neutral stimuli associated with pleasant stimuli. Media vio- lence is an important issue in North American culture. Surveys suggest that about 60% of television programs depict violence. Furthermore, numerous studies have concluded that media violence has an impact on children’s aggression (Bushman, 2003; Bushman & Huesmann, 2001; Kirsh, 2006).

However, we’ll consider a different component of media violence: Do people remember commercials less accurately when they are associated with violent material? To answer this question, Bushman (1998) recorded 15-minute segments of two videos. One video, Karate Kid III, showed violent fighting and destruction of property. The other video, Gorillas in the Mist, was judged equally exciting by undergraduate students, but it contained no violence. Bushman then inserted two 30-second advertisements for neutral items into each of the two video clips.

College students watched either the violent or the nonviolent film clip. Then they were asked to recall the two brand names that had been featured in the commercials and to list everything they could recall about the commercials. The results showed significantly better recall—on both measures—for commercials that had appeared in the nonviolent film. Additional research demonstrates that anger and violence typically reduce memory accuracy (Bushman, 1998, 2003, 2005; Gunter et al., 2005; Levine & Burgess, 1997).

Individuals who are concerned about societal violence should be interested in Bush- man’s research, because they can use this research in persuading advertisers to place their ads during nonviolent programs. Advertisers obviously want viewers to remem- ber their product’s name, as well as information about the product. In light of this research, advertisers should be hesitant to sponsor violent programs.

3. Over time, unpleasant memories fade faster. Richard Walker and his coauthors (1997) asked undergraduate students to record one personal event each day for about fourteen

Encoding in Long-Term Memory 133 weeks and to rate both the pleasantness and the intensity of the event. Three months later,

the participants returned, one at a time, for a second session. A researcher read off each event from the previous list, and the student was instructed to rate the current pleas- antness of that event. In the analysis of the results, the rating did not change for those events that were originally considered to be neutral. However, the events originally con- sidered to be pleasant were now considered to be slightly less pleasant. In contrast, the events originally considered to be unpleasant were now considered to be much more pleasant. Consistent with the Pollyanna Principle, people tend to rate past events more positively with the passage of time, a phenomenon called the positivity effect.

Additional research shows that elderly people are especially likely to show this pos- itivity effect (Kennedy et al., 2004; Mather, 2006). Furthermore, Walker and his col- leagues (2003) studied two groups of students; one group consisted of students who did not have tendencies toward depression, and one group had depressive tendencies. Those who did not have depressive tendencies showed the usual positivity effect. In contrast, the students with depressive tendencies showed equal fading for unpleasant and pleas- ant events. In other words, when people at risk for depression look back on their lives, the unpleasant events still remain unpleasant! As you can imagine, this research has important implications for clinical psychologists. Therapists must address a depressed client’s interpretation of past events, as well as the current situation.

So far, we have considered how the pleasantness of the stimuli influences memory. As we’ve seen, pleasant stimuli usually fare better than less pleasant ones: (1) We often remember them more accurately; (2) we tend to forget information when it is associ- ated with violent, unpleasant stimuli; and (3) over time, pleasant memories fade less than unpleasant memories. Let’s now see how memory is influenced by the match between your mood and the emotional tone of the stimuli.

Mood Congruence. A second major category of studies about mood and memory is called mood congruence. Mood congruence means that you recall material more accu- rately if it is congruent with your current mood (Fiedler et al., 2003; Joorman & Siemer, 2004; Schwarz, 2001). For example, a person who is in a pleasant mood should remem- ber pleasant material better than unpleasant material, whereas a person in an unpleas- ant mood should remember unpleasant material better.

*

Consider a study by Laura Murray and her colleagues (1999). Like Walker and his colleagues (2003), these researchers tested one group of students who did not have ten- dencies toward depression, and one group with depressive tendencies. The participants were instructed to look at a series of 20 positive- and 20 negative-trait words. Later, the participants recalled as many words as possible from the original list.

Murray and her colleagues found results that were consistent with earlier research, as well as the research on depression and working memory we considered *A similar-sounding phenomenon is called mood-dependent memory in which you may remember more material if your mood at the time of retrieval matches your mood at the time of encoding. Mood-dependent memory is one example of the encoding speci- ficity principle, and the research shows that this effect is often weak or nonexistent (Forgas, 2001; Ryan & Eich, 2000).

in Chapter 4. Specifically, the nondepressed individuals recalled a greater overall percentage of the words than did the depression-prone individuals. In addition, as you can see from Table 5.2, the nondepressed students recalled a significantly greater percentage of positive words than negative words. In contrast, the depression-prone students recalled a slightly greater percentage of negative words than positive words. In these studies about mood congruence, nondepressed people typically recall more positive than negative material. In contrast, depression-prone people tend to recall more negative material (Fiedler et al., 2003; Mather, 2006; Parrott & Spackman, 2000; Schwarz, 2001). Like the results of the research by Walker and his colleagues (2003), these findings are important for clinical psychologists. If depressed people tend to for- get the positive experiences they have had, their depression could increase still further (Schacter, 1999).