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

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effect on memory that is separate from attentional processes, with the effects of<br />

emotion on memory direct and independent from the effects on attention. In<br />

contrast, Clark-Foos & Marsh (2008) argued that the involvement of attention<br />

in the emotional enhancement of memory is dependent upon circumstances.<br />

They suggested that there may be a conscious route by which emotion<br />

enhances memory through the allocation of additional attention at encoding to<br />

negative emotional stimuli, but when this route is constrained there may be a<br />

more automatic route through which the emotional enhancement occurs. Clark-<br />

Foos & Marsh (2008) emphasised that the laws which will be found to govern<br />

the relationship between emotion and memory will greatly depend on the<br />

context of the findings and therefore may differ with different stimuli and<br />

tasks.<br />

Studies such as those described above have demonstrated that<br />

emotional stimuli can be processed with a reduced amount of attention at the<br />

time of encoding and therefore in circumstances where attentional capacity is<br />

reduced, e.g. during the completion of a concurrent task, emotional stimuli<br />

receive more complete processing than neutral stimuli and this may lead to<br />

more accurate memory for the emotional than neutral stimuli. This suggests<br />

that attention may be deployed in a different way for emotional and neutral<br />

stimuli, and this deployment may result in better memory for emotional than<br />

neutral stimuli.<br />

ii) Attention narrowing<br />

Another way in which the deployment of attention may differ between<br />

emotional and neutral stimuli could be in the spatial distribution of attention<br />

across a visual stimulus. Research investigating memory for central and<br />

31

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