Memory: The Key Aspects Of Memory And Emotional Memory

Introduction:

Memory is defined as “the faculty by which the mind stores and remembers information” (“Tmesis”, n.d.); and it is a purely mental process that always access to stored information. Memories can either be pleasant or unpleasant, but the fact is, they still exist either way. They are an essential part of who we are and without them, we would struggle to establish our identity. Besides being images of the past, memory is equally emotions too. Emotions are the main reason a memory is either stored or forgotten. They are a key factor in memory.

Emotional memories:

People are more likely to remember and recall events that have more emotion attached to them. Studies have shown a correlation of 71% between participants’ ratings of

All of those, take the form of a memory (2016, p. 394). Similar to emotional memory, the best way to retrieve a memory is by reinstating the emotion experienced originally (Clark and Fiske ,year, p). In addition, certain environmental stimuli evoke deeper and better memory. In other words, certain environments trigger certain stimuli in a person depending on their emotional attachment to the environment. For example, a boy grew up being abused in a green house, later on in life; he grew up and moved to a blue house. If you were to take the man (who was the small boy) to any greenhouse which is not the original one, the colour of the house and the house ( its self being green), would trigger certain emotional responses which were previously experienced in the original green house. The colour green would be the cue of the emotion, and that emotion would rise or bring back past

The role of emotions in encoding and recalling information is an uncontrollable aspect of life. However, emotions may mislead the recollection. For instance, immersing someone’s hand in ice water may affect memory seen before. This is because emotional arousal is an “arousal-biased competition” (2012, para. 5). Generally, the emotion that is more dominate during a certain period is more likely to be remembered compared to the emotion that seconds it. With reference to the previous illustration of the girl: her negative self-concept and her personal perception of herself, lead her to depression and/ anxiousness. If she were to recall that specific memory, she would remember all the negative emotions, because those are the dominant ones in her memory. All the other emotions would simply fade behind.

Similarly, emotions influence peoples’ perception and encoding of the memory. In other words, items that are neutral or not emotionally arousing will be impaired in memory, while items seen as emotionally arousing will be more prominent in memory. For instance, an eyewitness for a murder case is more likely to remember hearing the gunshot and seeing the shooter, but they will not remember what had led to the shooting and the speed of the get-away-car. If asked those previous two details, the witness would either not remember or over-exaggerate the