On the role of pervasive experiential coloration in memory

Emotion, Metaphor, and the Creative Process

“…Consistent with various theories and empirical findings, we propose that concepts and images representing objects, people, and events in memory possess a connotative-emotional aura, emotional or affective charge, texture, tone, or experiential coloration (Berggren, 1962(Berggren, -1963Wester, 1967;Isen, 1987;Lang, 1994;Miall, 1987;Oatley & Johnson-Laird, 1987;Osgood, 1963;Ricoeur, 1978;Sapir, 1949; G. J. W. Smith & van dm Meer, 1994;Spiro, Crismore & Turner, 1982;Zajonc, 1980). As noted earlier, these experientially based idiosyncratic emotions are multidimensional and cannot be described easily in terms of socially determined emotional categories.…”

“…Various authors have sugpsted that emotions attached to different concepts and images may interact or reverberate in memory with each other (Berggren, 1962(Berggren, -1963Isen, 1987;Miall, 1987;Ricoeur, 1978;Spiro et al, 1982). For example, Isen proposed that if the affective tones of two concepts are shared, then the concepts might be perceived as more related than they would otherwise.…”

An emotional-experiential perspective on creative symbolic-metaphorical processes

“…Damasio, 1994;Miall, 1987;Spiro et al, 1982), and more generally, in the creative process, often considered as critically relying on original associations (Koestler, 1964;Martindale, 1993;Mednick, 1962;Simonton, 1988). ERM builds upon this research specifying a testable way in which emotions may play a functional role in forming original associations.…”

“…Halasz, 1991;Miall, 1987;Ricoeur, 1978;Spiro, Crismore, & Turner, 1982). In terms of research hypotheses, focusing on the role of affective, experiential aspects of representation in the process of literary text comprehension, Spiro et al (1982) suggested that these aspects are integral for memorial functioning, are relatively independent of discursive representations, and employ different modes of connecting information, such as pervasive overlays rather than discursive links (pp. 255-256).…”

Anticipating the Self: Toward a Personal Construct Model of Emotion

“…At the point where discursive, schema-like forms of representation fail to predict response, a partly distinct, parallel form of representation appears to control perception or memory: Spiro calls this "experiential coloration," by which he means affect (Spiro, Crismore, & Turner, 1982). Thus anticipation may be construed in noncognitive form: emotion or affect (the terms will be used interchangeably here) can also cany an anticipatory value.…”