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PDF (PhD Thesis Susan Chipchase) - Nottingham eTheses ...

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Chapter 6. Discussion<br />

In the final chapter of this thesis I will summarise my research findings,<br />

discuss ideas for continuing this research, and consider how the research in this<br />

thesis informs a number of issues: the choice of experimental stimuli in the<br />

study of emotion; the influence of task instructions on experimental paradigms<br />

and the influence of emotion on different memory processes.<br />

Section 6.1. Summary of findings<br />

In this thesis I have examined the influence of emotion on memory. I<br />

began in chapter 2 by considering how factors at the time of retrieving a<br />

memory may be influenced by emotion and proposed that emotions of different<br />

valence may encourage the use of different strategies to retrieve memories. I<br />

found an emotional enhancement of memory for pictures which was restricted<br />

to positive emotion and only present with recognition tasks which encouraged<br />

the use of a nonanalytic processing strategy at retrieval, that is to say with a<br />

traditional / straightforward recognition task and a nonanalytic recognition task<br />

(see Figure 6.1). An additional and unexpected finding was that when<br />

recognition was followed by a Remember/Know/Guess judgement for each<br />

item there was no emotional enhancement of memory.<br />

Figure 6.1 Summary of findings from Chapter 2<br />

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