[Memory and affect].

Abstract

In the last decade, numerous studies have been devoted to the cognitive approach of emotions and their relationship with memory. Cognitive neuropsychologists consider affectivity as a contextual factor which can facilitate the processes of encoding or restitution. It is not clear if emotions are memorized by the same processes as the neutral stimuli. In man, a dissociation was found between loss of memory for affective stimuli in subjects with lesions restricted to amygdala and loss of memory for neutral stimuli in subjects with lesions limited to hippocampus. Experimental studies showed that recall of neutral material was better if subjects were in the same mood at the time of recall as during the time of encoding (mood dependency). Other studies showed that subjects had better memory for material with an affective valence corresponding to their mood than for material with a different affective valence (mood congruency). The discrepancy between the results of various experimental studies on mood and memory are related to methodological difficulties and different theoretical approaches. Studies on autobiographical memory showed that some emotional memories can be specially vivid or persistent (flashbulb memories, Post-Stress Traumatic Disorder) but, in the opposite, that strong emotion can result in lacunar amnesia.