White, C, Kapucu, A, Bruno, D, Rotello, C and Ratcliff, R (2013) Memory bias for negative emotional words in recognition memory is driven by effects of category membership. Cognition and Emotion, 28. pp. 867-880. ISSN 1464-0600

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Abstract

Recognition memory studies often find that emotional items are more likely than neutral items to be labelled as studied. Previous work suggests this bias is driven by increased memory strength/familiarity for emotional items. We explored strength and bias interpretations of this effect with the conjecture that emotional stimuli might seem more familiar because they share features with studied items from the same category. Categorical effects were manipulated in a recognition task by presenting lists with a small, medium or large proportion of emotional words. The liberal memory bias for emotional words was only observed when a medium or large proportion of categorised words were presented in the lists. Similar, though weaker, effects were observed with categorised words that were not emotional (animal names). These results suggest that liberal memory bias for emotional items may be largely driven by effects of category membership.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	1701 Psychology, 1702 Cognitive Science
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology R Medicine > RC Internal medicine > RC0321 Neuroscience. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
Divisions:	Natural Sciences & Psychology (closed 31 Aug 19)
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis (Routledge): STM, Behavioural Science and Public Health Titles
Date Deposited:	02 Mar 2016 14:53
Last Modified:	04 Sep 2021 13:20
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/3045

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