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Updated: Jan 31, 2026

Brain Imaging Investigation of the Memory-Enhancing Effect of Emotion
Published on: May 4, 2011
Effect of negative emotional content on attentional maintenance in working memory
Gaën Plancher1, Sarah Massol1, Tiphaine Dorel1
1a Laboratoire d'Etude des Mécanismes Cognitifs, Université Lyon 2 , Bron , France.
Abstract:
Previous research has shown that emotional stimuli may interfere with working memory (WM) processes, but little is known about the process affected. Using a complex span task, the present study investigated the influence of processing negative emotional content on attentional maintenance in WM. In two experiments conducted under articulatory suppression, participants were asked to remember a series of five letters, each of which was followed by an image to be categorised. In half of the trials, the images were negative and in the other half, they were neutral. In both experiments, our results showed longer processing times for emotional stimuli than neutral stimuli, and lower memory performance when participants processed negative stimuli. We propose that emotional stimuli direct more attentional resources towards the processing component of the WM task, thereby reducing the storage capacity available for the items that are to be remembered.
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