LEVELS OF PROCESSING AND MEMORY FOR EMOTIONAL WORDS

In two experiments we tested the influence of levels of processing on memory for emotional and neutral words. Emotional words were recalled better than neutral words when the level of processing was low (orthographic or phonetic features). Recall for emotionally neutral words was either better (emotional valence rating) or the same (assigning colors or imagery rating) as for emotional words under deep levels of processing conditions. These results led to the interpretation that the emotional features of a word only have a memory-enhancing effect in the case of poor conceptual learning of item material. This fits in well with Bower's (1981) network theory of emotion which would predict an influence of emotional valence on recall only when few retrieval cues are available. When there is a high level of conceptual learning, the emotional valence of words should not influence memory performance.