TY - JOUR
T1 - Mechanisms underlying memory enhancement for disgust over fear
AU - Moeck, Ella K.
AU - Matson, Lucy A.
AU - Takarangi, Melanie K.T.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - Disgust is remembered better than fear, despite both emotions being highly negative and arousing. But the mechanisms underlying this effect are not well-understood. Therefore, we compared two proposed mechanisms underlying superior memory for disgust. According to the memory consolidation mechanism, it is harder (but crucial) to remember potentially contaminating vs. threatening stimuli. Hence, disgust elicits additional memory consolidation processes to fear. According to the attention mechanism, it takes longer to establish if disgust (relative to fear) stimuli are dangerous. Hence, people pay more attention to disgust during encoding. Both mechanisms could boost memory for disgust. Ninety-eight participants encoded disgust, fear, and neutral images whilst completing a simple task to measure attention. After 10- or 45-min delay, participants freely recalled the images. We found enhanced memory for disgust relative to fear after 10- and 45-min delay, but this effect was larger after 45-min. Participants paid more attention to disgust than fear images during encoding. However, mixed effect models showed increased attention did not contribute to enhanced memory for disgust. Our results therefore support the memory consolidation mechanism.
AB - Disgust is remembered better than fear, despite both emotions being highly negative and arousing. But the mechanisms underlying this effect are not well-understood. Therefore, we compared two proposed mechanisms underlying superior memory for disgust. According to the memory consolidation mechanism, it is harder (but crucial) to remember potentially contaminating vs. threatening stimuli. Hence, disgust elicits additional memory consolidation processes to fear. According to the attention mechanism, it takes longer to establish if disgust (relative to fear) stimuli are dangerous. Hence, people pay more attention to disgust during encoding. Both mechanisms could boost memory for disgust. Ninety-eight participants encoded disgust, fear, and neutral images whilst completing a simple task to measure attention. After 10- or 45-min delay, participants freely recalled the images. We found enhanced memory for disgust relative to fear after 10- and 45-min delay, but this effect was larger after 45-min. Participants paid more attention to disgust than fear images during encoding. However, mixed effect models showed increased attention did not contribute to enhanced memory for disgust. Our results therefore support the memory consolidation mechanism.
KW - attention
KW - Disgust
KW - emotional memory
KW - fear
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85107487714&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/02699931.2021.1936460
DO - 10.1080/02699931.2021.1936460
M3 - Article
C2 - 34078243
AN - SCOPUS:85107487714
VL - 35
SP - 1231
EP - 1237
JO - Cognition and Emotion
JF - Cognition and Emotion
SN - 0269-9931
IS - 6
ER -