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Emotional Context Shapes the Serial Position Curve

Emotional contexts affect memory processes. However, the impact of contextual priming as a function of the emotional valence on the recall of neutral information is not fully understood. The aim of the present study was to evaluate how a conditioning of emotional context during encoding may influenc...

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Autores principales: Giovannelli, Fabio, Innocenti, Iglis, Santarnecchi, Emiliano, Tatti, Elisa, Cappa, Stefano F., Rossi, Simone
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9139710/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35624967
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci12050581
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author Giovannelli, Fabio
Innocenti, Iglis
Santarnecchi, Emiliano
Tatti, Elisa
Cappa, Stefano F.
Rossi, Simone
author_facet Giovannelli, Fabio
Innocenti, Iglis
Santarnecchi, Emiliano
Tatti, Elisa
Cappa, Stefano F.
Rossi, Simone
author_sort Giovannelli, Fabio
collection PubMed
description Emotional contexts affect memory processes. However, the impact of contextual priming as a function of the emotional valence on the recall of neutral information is not fully understood. The aim of the present study was to evaluate how a conditioning of emotional context during encoding may influence the subsequent memory of otherwise neutral materials in a well-established phenomenon as the serial position effect. Participants performed a free recall task for neutral words in three conditions: (i) word list alone; (ii) word list coupled with positive or neutral images; and (iii) word list coupled with negative or neutral images. Images were presented before each word stimulus. In three different experiments, the emotional context during the word list presentation was manipulated separately for primacy and recency clusters, and for the middle words (‘middlecy’). Emotional context affects free recall of neutral stimuli, changing the serial position curve effect across conditions. Namely, emotional images presented in the primacy and recency clusters worsen accuracy, whereas their occurrence in the ‘middlecy’ cluster reduces the oblivion. The present findings show that the typical pattern related to the serial position curve for neutral information can be shaped by the conditioning of emotional context. Findings have implications in medical-legal contexts in the case of the recollection of events with high emotional content.
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spelling pubmed-91397102022-05-28 Emotional Context Shapes the Serial Position Curve Giovannelli, Fabio Innocenti, Iglis Santarnecchi, Emiliano Tatti, Elisa Cappa, Stefano F. Rossi, Simone Brain Sci Article Emotional contexts affect memory processes. However, the impact of contextual priming as a function of the emotional valence on the recall of neutral information is not fully understood. The aim of the present study was to evaluate how a conditioning of emotional context during encoding may influence the subsequent memory of otherwise neutral materials in a well-established phenomenon as the serial position effect. Participants performed a free recall task for neutral words in three conditions: (i) word list alone; (ii) word list coupled with positive or neutral images; and (iii) word list coupled with negative or neutral images. Images were presented before each word stimulus. In three different experiments, the emotional context during the word list presentation was manipulated separately for primacy and recency clusters, and for the middle words (‘middlecy’). Emotional context affects free recall of neutral stimuli, changing the serial position curve effect across conditions. Namely, emotional images presented in the primacy and recency clusters worsen accuracy, whereas their occurrence in the ‘middlecy’ cluster reduces the oblivion. The present findings show that the typical pattern related to the serial position curve for neutral information can be shaped by the conditioning of emotional context. Findings have implications in medical-legal contexts in the case of the recollection of events with high emotional content. MDPI 2022-04-29 /pmc/articles/PMC9139710/ /pubmed/35624967 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci12050581 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Giovannelli, Fabio
Innocenti, Iglis
Santarnecchi, Emiliano
Tatti, Elisa
Cappa, Stefano F.
Rossi, Simone
Emotional Context Shapes the Serial Position Curve
title Emotional Context Shapes the Serial Position Curve
title_full Emotional Context Shapes the Serial Position Curve
title_fullStr Emotional Context Shapes the Serial Position Curve
title_full_unstemmed Emotional Context Shapes the Serial Position Curve
title_short Emotional Context Shapes the Serial Position Curve
title_sort emotional context shapes the serial position curve
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9139710/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35624967
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci12050581
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