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Reid A, Bloxham A, Carr M, van Rijn E, Basoudan N, Tulip C, Blagrove M. Effects of sleep on positive, negative and neutral valenced story and image memory. Br J Psychol 2022; 113:777-797. [PMID: 35253902 PMCID: PMC9545409 DOI: 10.1111/bjop.12559] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/01/2021] [Accepted: 02/08/2022] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
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.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alex Reid
- Sleep Laboratory, Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Science, School of Psychology, Swansea University, Swansea, UK
| | - Anthony Bloxham
- Sleep Laboratory, Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Science, School of Psychology, Swansea University, Swansea, UK
| | - Michelle Carr
- Sleep Laboratory, Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Science, School of Psychology, Swansea University, Swansea, UK
| | - Elaine van Rijn
- Sleep Laboratory, Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Science, School of Psychology, Swansea University, Swansea, UK
| | - Nasreen Basoudan
- Sleep Laboratory, Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Science, School of Psychology, Swansea University, Swansea, UK
| | - Chloe Tulip
- Sleep Laboratory, Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Science, School of Psychology, Swansea University, Swansea, UK
| | - Mark Blagrove
- Sleep Laboratory, Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Science, School of Psychology, Swansea University, Swansea, UK
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Kramer RSS, Berry CJ, Jones AL, Gous G. Face Familiarity and Image-Specific Memory. Perception 2020; 49:978-987. [PMID: 32741253 DOI: 10.1177/0301006620946265] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
Face familiarity produces advantages for both memory and matching. By developing an internal representation through repeated experience, viewers extract identity-specific information that aids subsequent recognition. However, researchers have recently argued that this process may also result in a familiarity disadvantage, whereby specific instances of the face are more difficult to remember, perhaps due to this process of prioritising identity- over image-specific information. Although previous experiments found no evidence of this disadvantage in working memory, initial research has demonstrated an effect in longer term storage. Here, we attempted to replicate this finding by focussing on the ability to learn images of a single (un)familiar identity. Our results failed to demonstrate a familiarity disadvantage while replicating the finding that familiarity influences response bias. As researchers continue to investigate how familiarity alters both internal representations and associated processes, it is important to establish which processes may or may not be affected.
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