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

Section 6.2. Ideas for further research
The research conducted in this thesis has led to some interesting
findings for which there are several worthwhile avenues of further
investigation. However, the critical question in this thesis that remains
unanswered is how the negative and positive emotional enhancement of visual
specificity of memory can be explained. In the introduction to this thesis two
theories were described of how emotion may influence the encoding process of
memory and through this lead to the emotional enhancement of memory. In the
first theory it was argued that emotion alters the allocation and distribution of
attention to an event (e.g. Christianson, 1992). In the second theory it was
argued that emotional events are relatively rare or unusual and this enhanced
distinctiveness of emotional events may lead to the enhancement of memory
(e.g. Schmidt, 2002). This first theory suggests that the experience of emotion
alters cognitive processes whereas the second theory suggests that some
associated characteristic of emotional events leads to the emotional
enhancement of memory. In this thesis I have examined the influence of
emotion that has been described in both of these theories but the findings do
not provide clear support for either of these theoretical explanations of an
emotional enhancement of memory. One thing that is clear is the complexity of
the relationship between emotion and memory and the likelihood that some
aspects of both of the theories above impact upon this relationship. Some
additional experiments which could provide further evidence in support of
either of these theoretical explanations are described below.
We found no firm evidence of a causal relationship between the
narrowing of visual spatial attention and memory for specific details, however,
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