How Does Negative Emotion Cause False Memories?

• Published in: Psychological science Vol. 19; no. 9; pp. 919 - 925
• Main Authors: Brainerd, C. J., Stein, L. M., Silveira, R. A., Rohenkohl, G., Reyna, V. F.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA Blackwell Publishing 01.09.2008; SAGE Publications; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Adult; Arousal; Association Learning; Attention; Brazil; Confabulation; Cross-Cultural Comparison; Emotional states; Emotions; Error rates; False memory; False recall; Falsification; Female; Humans; Male; Meaning; Memories; Memory; Memory trace; Mental Recall; Mood; Negative events; Pattern Recognition, Visual; Repression, Psychology; Response bias; Signal detection; Signal Detection, Psychological; Speech Perception; Standard deviation; Summarization; Trauma; Truth; United States; Verb valency; Verbal Learning; Young Adult; Brazil; United States
• ISSN: 0956-7976; 1467-9280; 1467-9280
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02177.x

Remembering negative events can stimulate high levels of false memory, relative to remembering neutral events. In experiments in which the emotional valence of encoded materials was manipulated with their arousal levels controlled, valence produced a continuum of memory falsification. Falsification was highest for negative materials, intermediate for neutral materials, and lowest for positive materials. Conjoint-recognition analysis produced a simple process-level explanation: As one progresses from positive to neutral to negative valence, false memory increases because (a) the perceived meaning resemblance between false and true items increases and (b) subjects are less able to use verbatim memories of true items to suppress errors.