Background: Associative memory and memory coherence are influenced by several factors, including age and emotions. Although the existing literature has widely explored the impact of negative emotions on memory, there is a dearth of studies investigating the effect of positive emotions, particularly in children. This study aims to fill this gap by analysing how positive emotions affect associative memory and memory coherence in children and young adults.

Methods: The study consisted of 3 parts: associative memory task (encoding and retrieval), affective ratings of faces, ratings of events (arousal and valence). Forty events were created (each one containing a face, an object and a location), the face could be emotionally positive or neutral. Our adult sample consisted of 35 participants, the children one was of 31. Data were analysed using ANOVAs to examine the influence of age and emotion on associative memory (accuracy) and memory coherence (dependency).

Results: The results showed a significant effect of age on associative memory, with young adults performing better than children. However, for memory coherence, the effect of age was inverted, with children performing better. No significant influence of positive emotions (or pair type) on memory or interactions effects were found.

Conclusion: This study highlighted the importance of age as in associative memory, while demonstrating that (even if related), associative memory and memory coherence undergo different developmental trajectories. In this study, the influence of positive emotions was found to be negligible. These findings suggest the need for further research to explore in more depth the underlying mechanisms and practical implications.