Different effects of emotional valence on overt attention and recognition memory

Extensive research has revealed enhanced attention and memory for emotional relative to neutral content. Amongst emotional information, valence effects can also arise: negative information often is preferentially attended and remembered relative to positive information, although the opposite valence effect can also occur. Little research has examined how valence effects in attention relate to valence effects in memory. This is the open question we addressed in this study, by tracking the eye gaze of 53 participants (ages 18-64) while they viewed scenes composed of an emotional (positive or negative) or neutral object superimposed on a neutral context and then tested their memory the next day. Emotional (positive or negative) objects were gazed at longer and recognised better than neutral objects. Amongst the emotional objects, there was a different effect of valence on attention and memory: positive objects were gazed at longer than negative objects while recognition memory was better for negative than positive objects. These valence effects were not modulated by age, and the attentional and mnemonic effects of valence were not correlated. These results suggest a dissociation in the mechanisms supporting valence effects on attention and memory.