A facilitative effect of negative affective valence on working memory

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Affective Science

Background:

• Negative information typically impairs working memory (WM) due to attentional capture.
• The potential facilitative effects of negative valence on WM remain underexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether negative affective valence can facilitate working memory performance.
• To examine the role of attention disengagement in the effect of negative valence on WM.

Main Methods:

• Participants performed a working memory task using affective retro-cues (negative, neutral, positive) to remember spatial color locations.
• Attention was manipulated to either shift or stay at the cued location post-cue.
• Color discrimination performance was assessed.

Main Results:

• Negative cues resulted in shorter response times (RTs) in the attention-shift condition compared to neutral and positive cues.
• Negative cues led to longer RTs in the attention-stay condition.
• These findings indicate valence-dependent effects on WM performance.

Conclusions:

• Negative affective valence can enhance working memory performance, specifically by speeding up response times.
• This enhancement is contingent upon the ability to disengage attention from the negative stimuli.
• The findings challenge the notion that negative information solely impairs cognitive functions like working memory.