We always remember emotional memories. They come flooding back, as vivid as if they were happening in the present. Emotional experiences can cause lasting impressions. How we remember things is not only influenced by our surroundings but also on our emotional state of mind and scientists say that this emotional state can stay for a very long period of time and colour our future experiences. But do we remember non-emotional events in the same way?
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Researchers say that non-emotional events that follow emotional ones are also better remembered and can be influenced by memories of the emotional experiences.
For this study, subjects were shown a series of scenes that had emotional content and the capacity to elicit emotions. About 10 -30 minutes later they were shown some non-emotional neutral content. Another group of subjects watched the non-emotional scenes first followed by the emotionally charged ones.
Both groups were subjected to fMRI scans to measure brain activity and skin conductance to measure physiological arousal.
Six hours later the subjects underwent a memory test of the scenes they had witnessed.
The researchers found that those subjects who viewed the emotional scenes first had a better recall of the neutral non-emotional ones than those subjects who watched the neutral scenes first.
The data from the brain scan showed that the state of the brain or “emotional hangover” from the emotional experience endured for another 20 to 30 minutes and influenced the way future experiences were processed and interpreted by the subject.
It was also found that the memory of non-emotional experiences was better if it followed an emotional one.
Emotions are a state of our mind and highly charged experiences can stay with us for a long time, colouring our interpretation of future events.
Source: Nature Neuroscience
