Emotional State Experiments To Study The Impact Of Prospective Memory

The relationship between emotion and memory always is one important topic of the cognitive psychology researches. However, the previous researches mostly focused on the influences of distinct emotions on the maintenance and retrieval performance of retrospective memory. And some corresponding models have been developed, such as the mood-congruency theory, the transfer appropriate process theory, etc. Since the Mid-1990s, along with the prospective memory being paid more and more attention, researchers began to investigate the impact of different emotional state on prospective memory. But such studies, both in quantity as well as in depth are in the early stages. By reviewing the previous papers, we found that the results of the studies have done on emotional influences on prospective memory are inconsistent, and that there haven't been any investigations of the effects of positive emotions on prospective memory.Following the experiment paradigm, this research investigates how anxious state and happiness, which are the most popular emotional states of the students in school, influence prospective memory, and compares with the effects of these two emotional states on retrospective memory. The results show that:1)There is no significant influence of trait anxiety for either prospective memory or retrospective memory.2)Both prospective memory and retrospective memory are significantly influenced by state anxiety. The participants with high state anxiety have better prospective memory performance, on the contrary, they have worse performance of retrospective memory, than the ones with low state anxiety.3)Happiness has significant effect on prospective memory, but no on retrospective memory.