The effect of emotional valence on memory for face identity

Graduation date: 2015Previous studies using an incidental learning paradigm have found that facial emotion enhances subsequent face recognition. The present study examined whether emotion enhances only memory for the specific emotional features, or whether it also enhances general memory of that person's identity. Prior to the study, we had 20 participants validate the face stimuli with emotion valence (how positive or negative) and arousal (how exciting or calming) ratings. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants performed a gender discrimination task on a face expressing either an angry or a happy emotion, unaware that they would later be tested on their recognition of those faces (i.e., incidental learning). They then performed a 20-minute distraction task. Finally, they performed a recognition test, judging whether each face identity was previously shown ("old") or not ("new"). We found enhanced memory of angry faces, relative to happy faces, when the exact same face - showing the same emotion - was used during the later recognition test (Experiment 1), but not when a neutral face was used at test (Experiment 2). This finding suggests that negative emotional expressions improve memory for that specific emotional expression, without improving general memory for that person's identity