Retrograde Memory: The Predictors of Horror are Remembered Better Than the Horror Itself

Indianapolis, IN

160 Butler University students participated in this study and have been compensated with extra credit. The participants viewed a narrated slide show of a tour through a home. The slide show consisted of 35 slides, which contained 16 slides of photos of rooms, 16 word slides labeling the rooms, and 3 slides containing either emotionally arousing photos or neutral photos. We tested participant’s memories of pre-critical, critical, and post-critical slides, which were located in the middle of the slide show. Participants in the emotion condition changed their rated emotion valence over the course of the experiment, F(1,157) = 15.35, p < .0001, suggesting the emotional content of the slides worked as designed. Participants recalled more items overall, F(2, 314) = 3.5, p < .035 when they were in the pre-critical slide that preceded the emotional condition (M=1.1) than when they were in the critical slide in the emotional condition (M=.86), or the post-critical slide in the emotional condition (M=.78). Therefore, arousal enhanced memory for the items preceding the emotional slides. In other words, memory will be enhanced for items that may come to signal arousing events.