Induced negative arousal modulates the speed of visual working memory consolidation.

Abstract

This study examines how induced negative arousal influences the consolidation of fragile sensory inputs into durable working memory (WM) representations. Participants performed a visual WM change detection task with different amounts of encoding time manipulated by random pattern masks inserted at different levels of memory-and-mask Stimulus-Onset-Asynchrony (SOA). Prior to the WM task, negative or neutral emotion was induced using audio clips from the International Affective Digital Sounds (IADS). Pupillometry was simultaneously recorded to provide an objective measure of induced arousal. Self-report measures of early-life stress (i.e., adverse childhood experiences) and current mood states (i.e., depressed mood and anxious feeling) were also collected as covariates. We find that participants initially remember a comparable number of WM items under a short memory-and-mask SOA of 100 ms across emotional conditions, but then encode more items into WM at a longer memory-and-mask SOA of 333 ms under induced negative arousal. These findings suggest that induced negative arousal speeds up WM consolidation. Yet, induced negative arousal does not seem to significantly affect participants' WM storage capacity estimated from a separate no mask condition. Furthermore, this emotional effect on WM consolidation speed is moderated by key affect-related individual differences. Participants who have greater pupil responses to negative IADS sounds or have more early-life stress show faster WM consolidation under induced negative arousal.Collectively, our findings reveal a critical role of phasic adrenergic responses in the rapid consolidation of visual WM content and identify potential moderators of this association.

Negative emotion reduces visual working memory recall variability: A meta-analytical review.

“…As a result, tasks that capture control-related WM functions (e.g., the n-back task) often show reduced performance under negative emotion (e.g., Choi et al, 2013; Schoofs et al, 2008; Shackman et al, 2006). On the other hand, negative emotion could also increase the efficiency of information processing (Eysenck et al, 2007; Xie et al, 2022), such that memory items retained under the focus of attention in WM may be encoded with greater precision. Alternatively, this trade-off between the total amount of information retained in WM and the quality of remembered content could also be a result of a change in task strategy or information processing style induced by a negative emotional state (Storbeck, 2013; Storbeck & Clore, 2005).…”

“…Third, the current study has revealed a potential moderator of the experimental effect of induced negative emotion on WM. Although the induction and assessment of emotional experiences have been extensively investigated in the past several decades (e.g., Bradley & Lang, 1994; Miers et al, 2011; Schubert, 2011; Siedlecka & Denson, 2019; Vuoskoski & Eerola, 2011), emotional experiences induced using laboratory stimuli and procedures can vary significantly due to individual differences in various factors such as emotion sensitivity and resilience (Chen et al, 2018; Quigley et al, 2014; Xie, Cappiello, et al, 2018; Xie et al, 2022). Besides implementing more effective emotion induction procedures (Quigley et al, 2014), another essential step is to assess how the strength or intensity of induced emotional experiences across participants could modulate our experimental observations.…”

“…This treatment of self-report emotional experience as a continuous instead of a binary variable (e.g., negative vs. neutral) is consistent with the contemporary understanding of emotion as a theoretical construct (Mauss & Robinson, 2009). Nevertheless, considering that emotional experiences are multifaceted, future research should include multimodal assessments of induced emotional experiences, such as more objective measures of emotional experiences (e.g., pupil sizes, Xie et al, 2022), to provide a better evaluation of the effects of induced emotion on cognition.…”

“…On the other hand, negative emotion could also increase the efficiency of information processing (Eysenck et al, 2007;Xie, W., Sing, J. L. L., Martinez-Flores, A., & Zhang, 2021). As a result, memory items retained under the focus of attention in WM may be encoded with greater precision.…”

“…First, individual differences in the induced emotional experiences can be substantial and predictive of subsequent cognitive effects (Xie, W., Sing, J. L. L., Martinez-Flores, A., & Zhang, 2021). It is possible that differences in the strength of induced negative emotion experiences in different study cohorts could account for the heterogeneity in the recall variability effect.…”