Effects of sleep on positive, negative and neutral valenced story and image memory

During sleep, emotional memories are preferentially strengthened. However, most studies on sleep and emotional memory focus on comparing negative valence with neutral valence stimuli. This study compared the sleep‐dependent memory effects for stories and images, each comprising negative, neutral, and positive stimuli. It was hypothesized that a sleep effect would be seen for negatively and positively valenced stimuli. A novel story memory task (comprising three stories), and photographs from the Nencki Affective Picture database were presented for learning to 61 healthy adults (ages 18–25). They were tested for memory on the two tasks immediately, and then again after either a 2‐hr nap (n = 31; 17 women, 14 men) or 2‐hr wake period (n = 30; 13 women, 17 men). At second testing, the sleep condition had significantly better recall compared to the wake condition on both tasks. There was a relationship with valence only for the story task, with better performance for the sleep condition on the negatively and positively valenced texts, but not on the neutral text. There were no significant relationships between memory measures and sleep‐stage duration and EEG power variables. The story memory findings support the hypothesis that memory consolidation prioritizes emotional memory, whether positively or negatively valenced.

Building Wellbeing in People With Chronic Conditions: A Qualitative Evaluation of an 8-Week Positive Psychotherapy Intervention for People Living With an Acquired Brain Injury

Research indicates that Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) is associated with significant and chronic impairment across multiple areas of functioning including physical, cognitive, emotional and behavioral domains. Whilst impairments associated with ABI can be ameliorated, cure is seldom possible. The emergence of positive psychology reflects a paradigm shift in health and wellbeing research, highlighting the role of character strengths, positive emotions, meaning, and resilience. Positive psychology interventions have been demonstrated to improve wellbeing in a variety of populations, although research investigating the impact of positive psychotherapy for people living with ABI are sparse. Here we characterize the experience of an 8-week positive psychotherapy intervention for 13 people living with ABI including four mentors and nine participants using thematic analysis of transcripts collected during mini-groups and one-to-one interviews. Six main themes were identified including empowerment, social opportunity, coping, cultivation of positive emotion, consolidation of skills and barriers. Results indicated that wellbeing can be promoted and improved in individuals with ABI. Recent theoretical developments in wellbeing science highlight scope to improve the intervention by connecting individuals to their communities and spending time in nature.