No Evidence That Self-Rated Negative Emotion Boosts Visual Working Memory Precision

• Published in: Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance 2021-02, Vol.47 (2), p.282-307
• Main Authors: Souza, Alessandra S., Thaler, Theresa, Liesefeld, Heinrich R., Santos, Flávia H., Peixoto, Débora S., Albuquerque, Pedro B.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Emotions; Female; Human; Induction; Information processing; Male; Memory; Mental task performance; Music; Negative Emotions; Orientation behavior; Positive Emotions; Self evaluation; Self-Report; Short Term Memory; Visual Attention; Visual Memory
• ISSN: 0096-1523; 1939-1277
• DOI: 10.1037/xhp0000891

Emotion is assumed to change how people process information by modulating attentional focus. Two recent studies (Spachtholz et al., 2014; Xie & Zhang, 2016) reported that self-reported negative emotion boosted the precision with which information was stored in visual working memory. Here we attempted and failed to replicate these findings across seven studies conducted in four countries. Emotion was induced by presenting emotional images (negative, neutral, and positive) before each trial of a visual working memory task (six experiments) or the images were combined with emotional music during a 3-min induction phase (one experiment) occurring prior to the memory task. In the visual working memory task, participants stored (emotionally neutral) continuously varying colored dots or oriented triangles. At test, the color or orientation of a probed item was reproduced. Although participants reported changes in their emotional state commensurate with the manipulations, six experiments showed substantial evidence against changes in visual working memory precision (and quantity) under negative (and positive) emotion in comparison with neutral, whereas one condition, in one study, showed increased precision under both negative and positive emotion compared with neutral. These results challenge the view that emotion modulates visual working memory quality and quantity. Public Significance Statement In our everyday life, we are constantly exposed to stimuli that elicit brief emotional reactions, for example, sad news, exciting images, or melancholic music. This study examined the possibility that changes in emotional state produced by these emotional stimuli affects how other (neutral) visual information is stored in mind over brief intervals. Our results provide substantial evidence that emotions do not bias visual memory over the short term, suggesting that the fidelity and quantity of our memory for neutral information is not affected by the moment-to-moment fluctuations in our emotions.