Date of Award
5-1-2024
Language
English
Document Type
Master's Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
College/School/Department
Department of Psychology
Dissertation/Thesis Chair
Jeanette Altarriba
Committee Members
Gregory Cox
Keywords
adaptive memory, emotion word processing, survival processing effect, valence
Subject Categories
Psychology
Abstract
Memory for words encoded for their fitness relevance is enhanced compared to memory for words encoded based on relevance to other scenarios (Nairne et al., 2007). Much of the work examining emotion within the survival paradigm has focused on the presented scenarios (Bell et al., 2013; Kazanas & Altarriba, 2017, 2018; Kroneisen et al., 2022). However, no work has yet to focus on the emotionality of the information that is being encoded. A possible contributor to the advantage may be the emotional valence of the encoded items, as emotion has been known to have effects on memory (Dev et al., 2022; Gao et al., 2024; Kensigner, 2007; Tyng et al., 2017). The current study aims to fill this gap in the literature by examining how different types of emotion words are encoded within the survival paradigm. In a series of two experiments, emotion-laden (e.g., slap, prize) and neutral words (e.g., cigar, photon), were compared in order to determine the role of valence in survival processing. The first experiment compared negative and positive emotion-laden words to the original words used in Nairne et al. (2007). The second experiment compared the original Nairne words to a set of neutral words. The survival advantage was replicated across both experiments, as words rated for their fitness relevance were better remembered than words rated for their relevance to a moving scenario. Interestingly, positive valence was found to produce better recall compared to negative and neutral valence. These results are discussed with regards to the survival and emotion processing literatures.
Recommended Citation
Clark, Dailyn Quinn, "Survival Of The Optimist: How Emotion Words Are Processed Within The Survival Paradigm" (2024). Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024). 3301.
https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/legacy-etd/3301
