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Updated: Jul 16, 2025

Brain Imaging Investigation of the Memory-Enhancing Effect of Emotion
Published on: May 4, 2011
Age-related reductions in arousal-enhanced memory are moderated by trait emotion regulation
Kyoungeun Lee1,2, Brialisse Sayre3,4, Taylor A James3,5
1School of Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA. klee773@utexas.edu.
Abstract:
Emotional arousal is known to enhance episodic memory in young adults. However, compared to valence, little is known about how healthy aging impacts arousal-enhanced memory effects. Furthermore, while emotion regulation is believed to improve with age, it is unclear how individual differences in emotion regulation influence arousal-enhanced memory. In this large-scale online study, we investigated the impact of age and individual differences in emotion regulation on arousal-enhanced memory. During encoding, participants made arousal ratings about negative, neutral, and positive images, and we compared their subsequent memory of high and low-arousal images. We found the impact of emotional arousal on memory was reduced with age, especially for older adults who habitually suppress their emotions. Our findings show that arousal-related memory benefits are reduced with advancing age, and that individual differences in habitual usage of emotion regulation impact these age-related alterations.
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