Estudo Do Processamento Mnésico Consciente E Não Consciente De Palavras Emocionais

Abstract

ABSTRACT:According to the literature there is not one but multiple memory systems. In particular, two forms of memory can be distinguished in long-term memory: the explicit or declarative memory and the implicit or non-declarative memory. Different stimuli (words, faces/photographs/images or storytelling) of emotional significance (neutral/positive/negative) have been used to explain the functional interdependence between memory and emotion, with the relevance of affective material in the processing of information appearing to increase with age (Carstensen & Mikels, 2005). With the association of a depressed emotional state, several authors suggest that the information that is affectively congruent with a person's state of mind/mood is better remembered than information that is affectively incongruent (Joorman & Gotlib, 2006; Lepännen, 2006). In this study we evaluate the conscious and non-conscious mnemonic processing of emotional words. To this end, 200 older adults aged between 60 and 89 were involved and two specific tests were designed (word recognition test and bigram completion test).In both tasks, the emotion words were better recognised and recalled than the ageing words. Despite the research hypotheses have not been confirmed, the emotional content of the stimuli somehow facilitated the retrieval of previously stored information. The differences found when comparing the group of the depressed with the non-depressed elderly are not statistically significant (p