Emotion and memory narrowing: A review and goal-relevance approach

Abstract

People typically show excellent memory for information that is central to an emotional event but poorer memory for peripheral details. Not all studies demonstrate memory narrowing as a result of emotion, however. Critically important emotional information is sometimes forgotten; seemingly peripheral details are sometimes preserved. To make sense of both the general pattern of findings that emotion leads to memory narrowing, and findings that violate this pattern, this review addresses mechanisms through which emotion enhances and impairs memory. Divergent approaches to characterising information as central versus peripheral are also addressed. By directly contrasting these approaches, and the evidence supporting them, this review helps to clarify when and how emotion enhances memory and provides directions for future research. Evidence shows that memory narrowing as a result of emotion, and a number of violations of the memory narrowing pattern, can be explained by the view that emotion enhances memory for information relevant to currently active goals.

Keywords:

• Emotion
• Memory
• Goals
• Cognitive processes
• Affective valence

Acknowledgements

We are indebted to Dirk Hermans, Daniel Reisberg, Martin Safer, Susan Charles, Robin Kaplan, Elizabeth Davis and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on drafts of this paper. We also thank Carly Magner for help with preparation of the reference section.