[Relationship between the effects of word emotionality and the consciousness of retrieval process in memory]

Two experiments were carried out to examine the effects of word emotionality on explicit and implicit memory. In Experiment 1, 46 undergraduates studied a word list followed by free recall or word-stem completion test. The list was consisted of 36 nouns with pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant words. In free recall test, both the pleasant and unpleasant words were more recalled than the neutral words. In word-stem completion test, there were no significant effects of emotional value. Experiment 2 reexamined the result of word-stem completion test in Experiment 1. A process-dissociation procedure was used to estimate two components of conscious and automatic retrieval process in implicit memory. The results suggest that the emotionality of words had a facilitative effect on conscious component but no effect on unconscious component.