Distinctive Effects of Within-Item Emotion Versus Contextual Emotion on Memory Integration

This study investigates the links between memory and emotion and, more specifically, how emotions can impact the integration mechanism. The authors' hypotheses were based on a dynamic conception of memory (Versace et al., 2014; Macri et al., 2018), and stated that an emotion coming from the stimulus (within-item emotion) should enhance the integration of the stimulus features, and that an emotion coming from the context (contextual emotion) should improve integration of the item and its context. In two experiments, the participants performed an associative memory task in which they undertook three kinds of recall: item (memory for a target item), location (spatial position of a target item), and association recall (association of a target item and its location). In the first experiment, the emotion was introduced by the target stimuli (neutral or negative words), while in the second experiment, contextual emotion was introduced by means of an odorant dispenser (negative or neutral odorant) placed under the participant’s chin and only neutral words were used. In both experiments, target items were words objects or animals that were either typically associated to a sound or not typically associated to a sound). The results confirm that emotions act in different ways on the integration mechanism depending on how they are introduced to the participant: within-item emotion enhances item recall itself by strengthening the link between its components, while contextual emotion favors the integration of the item with its location.