Goal Conduciveness as a Key Determinant of Memory Facilitation

Montagrin, Alison; Brosch, Tobias; Sander, David

doi:10.1037/a0033066

Scientific article

English

Goal Conduciveness as a Key Determinant of Memory Facilitation

Contributors

Montagrin, Alison

; Brosch, Tobias

; Sander, David

Published in

Emotion, vol. 13, no. 4, p. 622-628

Publication date

2013

Abstract

The affective dimensions responsible for the modulation of memory by emotion are subject to debate.Several hypotheses have been suggested: The arousal hypothesis of memory facilitation suggests the arousal dimension as the key determinant in whether emotional events are more likely to be remembered than neutral events. The valence hypothesis suggests preferential status for unpleasant, as compared with pleasant, stimuli in memory. The authors tested an alternative hypothesis derived from the appraisal theory of emotion, namely, that events that are relevant to the current concerns of the individual benefit from a memory advantage. In the present study, the authors demonstrate that initially neutral but goal conducive items (for game-related gain) remain stable in memory over time, whereas memory for goal irrelevant and goal obstructive items decline over time. They furthermore found that the affective evaluation of initially neutral items changed as a function of the goal relevance anipulation and that this change was stable over time. Taken together, findings support the relevance hypothesis of memory facilitation.

Keywords

Keywords: emotion
Memory
Goal relevance
Arousal
Valence

UNIGE affiliation entities

UNIGE research groups

Citation (ISO format)

MONTAGRIN, Alison, BROSCH, Tobias, SANDER, David. Goal Conduciveness as a Key Determinant of Memory Facilitation. In: Emotion, 2013, vol. 13, n° 4, p. 622–628. doi: 10.1037/a0033066

Article (Published version)

Identifiers

PID : unige:88846
DOI : 10.1037/a0033066

Journal ISSN

1528-3542

655views

730downloads

Creation

31/10/2016 11:37:00

First validation

31/10/2016 11:37:00

Update

13/10/2025 20:33:20

Status update

15/03/2023 00:55:12

Last indexation

31/08/2026 10:22:07

Goal Conduciveness as a Key Determinant of Memory Facilitation

Contributors

Published in

Publication date

Abstract

Keywords

UNIGE affiliation entities

UNIGE research groups

Citation (ISO format)

Main files (1)

Identifiers

Journal ISSN

Technical informations

Creation

First validation

Update

Status update

Last indexation