Abel, Adam (2020) Carry-over effects and recall of emotional words: An exploratory study. Honours thesis, University of Southern Queensland. (Unpublished)
Abstract
Research has repeatedly demonstrated in a range of cognitive tasks, that emotional information can disrupt performance beyond its presentation. These effects (carry-over effects) are not fully understood. This study explored whether negative emotional words would impact subsequent recall, focussing on recall of target words of differing valences (positive, negative, and neutral). It also considered whether any resulting carry-over effects could be interpreted from a disengagement perspective. Participants (N = 30) completed an immediate serial recall task with 30 trials (10 of each target word condition). The trial structure was: three negative words (Positions 1–3), followed by a neutral word (Position 4), a target word (Position 5), then another neutral word (Position 6). There was a significant interaction between target word condition and word position. Follow-up tests indicated significant differences in recall between target word conditions at Positions 4 and 5. Negative words were recalled significantly less than neutral words in Position 5 (p = .005). In Position 4, recall of words in the positive target word condition was significantly more than that of words in the negative (p = .004) and neutral (p = .009) target word conditions. This indicates that carry-over effects were present, interfered with other anticipated effects (e.g. priming), and inhibited recall of words of different emotional valences to different degrees. This could be explained as difficulty disengaging from negative information. This study contributes further understanding of the effects of emotional information in STM, which would ultimately inform improved treatments for disorders involving memory biases
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| Item Type: | Thesis (Non-Research) (Honours) |
|---|---|
| Item Status: | Live Archive |
| Additional Information: | Current UniSQ staff and students can request access to this thesis. Please email research.repository@unisq.edu.au with a subject line of SEAR thesis request and provide: Name of the thesis requested and Your name and UniSQ email address |
| Faculty/School / Institute/Centre: | Historic - Faculty of Health, Engineering and Sciences - School of Psychology and Counselling (1 Jan 2015 - 31 Dec 2021) |
| Supervisors: | Jessica Marrington |
| Qualification: | Bachelor of Science (Honours) |
| Date Deposited: | 03 Jun 2025 04:02 |
| Last Modified: | 03 Jun 2025 04:02 |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | carry-over effects; short-term memory; immediate serial recall; priming; emotional information; emotional Stroop effect |
| Fields of Research (2008): | 17 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences > 1799 Other Psychology and Cognitive Sciences > 179999 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences not elsewhere classified |
| Fields of Research (2020): | 52 PSYCHOLOGY > 5299 Other psychology > 529999 Other psychology not elsewhere classified |
| URI: | https://sear.unisq.edu.au/id/eprint/52093 |
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