A tale of two negatives: Differential memory modulation by threat-related facial expressions.

Abstract

Facial expressions serve as cues that encourage viewers to learn about their immediate environment. In studies assessing the influence of emotional cues on behavior, fearful and angry faces are often combined into one category, such as “threat-related,” because they share similar emotional valence and arousal properties. However, these expressions convey different information to the viewer. Fearful faces indicate the increased probability of a threat, whereas angry expressions embody a certain and direct threat. This conceptualization predicts that a fearful face should facilitate processing of the environment in order to gather information to disambiguate the threat. Here, we tested whether fearful faces facilitated processing of neutral information presented in close temporal proximity to the faces. In Experiment 1, we demonstrated that compared to neutral faces, fearful faces enhanced memory for neutral words presented in the experimental context, whereas angry faces did not. In Experiment 2, we directly compared the effects of fearful and angry faces on subsequent memory for emotional faces vs. neutral words. We replicated the findings of Experiment 1 and extended them by showing that participants remembered more faces from the angry face condition relative to the fear condition, consistent with the notion that anger differs from fear in that it directs attention towards the angry individual. Because these effects cannot be attributed to differences in arousal or valence processing, we suggest they are best understood in terms of differences in the predictive information conveyed by fearful and angry facial expressions.

Negative Emotional Experiences during Navigation Enhance Parahippocampal Activity during Recall of Place Information

“…Our results are consistent with previous studies that have shown enhanced retrieval performance for information paired with arousing stimuli during encoding and consolidation (Davis et al, 2011;Knight & Mather, 2009;Anderson, Wais, & Gabrieli, 2006;Nielson, Yee, & Erickson, 2005). The finding that retrieval speed was significantly faster for negative compared with positive locations supports the view that emotional enhancement effects are valence specific.…”

“…Valencespecific effects may reflect a natural bias of emotion regulation networks toward automatic processing of threatrelated information. Modulation of activity within the parahippocampal gyrus might be more important for negative stimulus events than for positive ones because the former are potentially threatening and thus have immediate survival value (Davis et al, 2011).…”

Vocal emotions influence verbal memory: Neural correlates and interindividual differences

“…Evidence for benefits has come from studies that have examined face identity memory or word memory in the context of neutral and emotional facial expressions (D'Argembeau & Van der Linden, 2011;Davis et al, 2011;Righi et al, 2012) or sentential contexts (Brierley, Medford, Shaw & David 2007;Guillet & Arndt, 2009;Phelps et al, 1997;Schmidt, 2012). Some facial emotion expressions were found to facilitate person or word memory relative to other expressions.…”

“…However, the extant work is relatively silent on the question of whether emotional voices affect listeners beyond the immediate present. Moreover, while there is ample evidence for the long-term effects of other modes of emotional stimulation, including verbal content (Leclerc & Kensinger, 2011;Schmidt, 2012;Werner, Peres, Duschek & Schandry 2010), faces (D'Argembeau & Van der Linden, 2011;Davis et al, 2011;Righi et al, 2012), and images (Croucher, Calder, Ramponi, Barnard & Murphy 2011;Kaestner & Polich, 2011), as yet little evidence has emerged for long-term effects of the voice.…”

Caution follows fear: Evidence from hierarchical drift diffusion modelling.

“…Intuitively though they might do. For example, fearful expressions are thought to warn of potential threat -a warning signal (Davis et al, 2011;Taylor & Whalen, 2014;Whalen, 1998) -therefore, responding cautiously by slowing down to avoid a mistake (trading speed for accuracy) is an intuitively plausible response to fearful expressions. For other emotional stimuli a speed-accuracy trade-off might lead to a different pattern.…”