Psychology: Literature review part 2
The study of how emotion influences aspects of memory formation, the initial encoding of the memory trace and its consolidation over time is a real experiment. In the abstract, some participants were involved in the study, and the results were observed after two days. The results were then analyzed and compared with previous studies.
In the experiments, the independent variable is the state of a scene which can be emotionally negative, positive or neutral. The state of the emotional scene is the variable that the people experimenting can alter. The dependent variable is the level of emotions depicted when the participants are subjected to shallow or deep conditions. The dependent variable usually depends on the independent variable.
Results showed that emotion memory enhancements were highest in shallow conditions. The functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) analyses revealed that the right amygdala predicted subsequent emotional memory in the superficial more than the deep state, whereas the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex demonstrated the reverse pattern. The study also showed that memories streaked with emotions tend to be remembered better and with greater vividness than memories neutral of emotions (Dolcos, Labar & Cabeza, 2005).
The study is between subjects because there are three participants, one with positive emotions, a second one with neutral feelings and the third one with negative emotions. The three participants are then subjected to the same conditions, shallow and deep, after which the results are observed, unlike in studies within-subjects whereby the same person tests all the circumstances.
References
Dolcos, F., Labar, K.S., & Cabeza, R. (2005). Remembering one year later: Role of the amygdala and the medial temporal lobe memory system in retrieving emotional memories. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 102(7), 2626–2631.