Effects of valence and list composition on memory predictions, performance, and beliefs

It is generally well known that emotion can benefit memory; however, much less is known about how emotion influences metamemory. The present study examined how list composition and emotion influence individuals' metamnemonic judgements and performance in a free recall task. Participants studied lists of words that varied in emotional valence and made immediate judgements of learning after each word. Valence was manipulated in a mixed-list design in Experiment 1, a pure-list design in Experiment 2, and in a mixed- versus pure-list design in Experiment 4; arousal was held constant. We expected that the relative influence of emotion on metamemory would depend on participants' beliefs about how emotion influences memory and that these beliefs would be more salient in a mixed-list than pure-list design. Consistent with this, emotional words were given higher judgements of learnings than neutral words in Experiments 1 and 4, but not in Experiment 2. Posttest questionnaires (Experiments 1 and 2) and data collected from a naïve participant sample (Experiment 3) indicated that participants believed that emotional words are more memorable than nonemotional words. These results suggest that list structure influenced the degree to which judgements of learnings were responsive to emotional content. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).