| Much research has been done in the areas of neuropsychalogy of memory and emotion. However, the neuropsychological examination of the combination of memory and emotion in emotional memory is relatively new. A memory decline was found in several types of memory as a result of normal aging. In the neuropsychology of emotion, the; neural substrates involved in emotional processing have been debated. Although theoretical concepts about emotional memory have been developed from animal research, no standardized measure of emotional memory has been developed yet. In the current study a measure of emotional memory was constructed. The measure included two stories, a positive and a negative. Both free and cued recall scores for each story were calculated. Three stages of test development were followed in this study. Item analysis was performed to assess the appropriateness of the items. Further, internal consistency and test re-test reliability studies were conducted. Finally, construct validity was done by exploring eleven hypotheses focusing on emotional memory changes as a result of normal aging.;The study participants consisted of ninety-five persons, fifty young and forty-five elderly. The item analysis procedures revealed that changes are needed to both stories on the measure. Further, reliability measures indicated that Story 1 of the measure had adequate reliability indices, and Story 2 had lower than recommended internal consistency scores.;The analyses of the eleven validity hypotheses support previous research findings about changes of memory with aging. Like previous findings, the current results showed decline in factual and explicit emotional verbal memory and visual memory. In addition, results of the current study suggest a possible relationship between gender and immediate memory of explicit emotional content. According to the findings, females remembered more explicit emotional information than males did. Implications of the results and recommendations for further research are provided. |
