![]() ![]() ![]() Pairs of objects that participants had seen immediately before and after a change of emotional state-whether of high, low, or medium intensity-were remembered as having occurred farther apart in time compared to images that did not span an emotional change. For each pair, they were asked which image they had seen first, then how far apart in time they felt they had seen the two objects. Then, after performing a task meant to distract them, participants were shown pairs of images again in a random order. They also used the computer mouse to track moment-to-moment changes in their feelings on a novel tool developed for tracking emotional reactions to music. Study participants listened to the music while imagining a narrative to accompany a series of neutral images on a computer screen, such as a watermelon slice, a wallet or a soccer ball. McClay and Clewett, along with Matthew Sachs at Columbia University, hired composers to create music specifically designed to elicit joyous, anxious, sad or calm feelings of varied intensity. What this research shows is that emotions seem to be an effective box for doing this sort of organization and for making memories more accessible."Ī similar effect may help explain why Taylor Swift's "Eras Tour" has been so effective at creating vivid and lasting memories: Her concert contains meaningful chapters that can be opened and closed to relive highly emotional experiences. "When we need to retrieve a piece of information, we open the box that holds it. "It's like putting items into boxes for long-term storage," said corresponding author David Clewett, an assistant professor of psychology at UCLA. This flexible process helps a person understand and find meaning in their experiences, as well as retain information. There's a constant tug of war between integrating memories and separating them, and it's this push and pull that helps to form distinct memories. Two processes appear to be involved in turning experiences into memories over time: The first integrates our memories, compressing and linking them into individualized episodes the other expands and separates each memory as the experience recedes into the past. "We think this finding has great therapeutic promise for helping people with PTSD and depression."Īs time unfolds, people need to group information, since there is too much to remember (and not all of it useful). "Changes in emotion evoked by music created boundaries between episodes that made it easier for people to remember what they had seen and when they had seen it," said lead author Mason McClay, a doctoral student in psychology at UCLA. The researchers found that the dynamics of people's emotions molded otherwise neutral experiences into memorable events. The study, published in Nature Communications, used music to manipulate the emotions of volunteers performing simple tasks on a computer. The latest clue comes from UCLA psychologists, who have discovered that fluctuating emotions elicited by music help form separate and durable memories. How emotions shape this memory formation process is a mystery that science has only recently begun to unravel. Time flows in a continuous stream-yet our memories are divided into separate episodes, all of which become part of our personal narrative. d One-dimensional kernel density plots for average music-induced valence and arousal ratings by emotion category of the song. c Two-dimensional kernel density plots of each emotion category (Calm, Anxious, Sad, and Joyous) across all participants and songs. Data-driven valence and arousal ‘event boundaries’ (dotted lines), or drastic shifts in emotion, were also identified using change-point analyses. Emotional valence and arousal ratings were averaged across all participants and mapped back onto the timeseries of object encoding. b Average emotional valence (blue) and arousal (purple) temporal profiles of an example song (joy-anxious-sad). A planchette (green and red circles) tracked participants’ cursor position and changed color depending on the placement within the compass. After performing encoding and temporal memory tasks, all participants re-listened to each song while dynamically rating their valence and arousal in real-time (sampled at 6 Hz). Emotion Compass mechanics and emotion category profiles. ![]()
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