Humörets inverkan på minnesprocessen

: Kan framplockningen av ett minne underlättas om graden av upprymdhet vid framplocknings- och inkodningstillfälle matchar?

Abstract

This study examined the possibility that there is an enhanced retrieval of a non-emotional stimuli if the levels of excitement at the times of retrieval and encoding are matching. Former research has found such effects regarding the mood types sad and happy, a phenomenon known as mood dependent memory (MDM). An increased knowledge about the memory process could be beneficial to many fields of application. For example, being able to elicit as much information as possible from an eyewit-ness is often crucial for a criminal investigation. In an experiment distributed online, 86 participants were randomized to one of the mood types (calm/excited) and were then presented with a list of 15 words. Later, they were once again randomized into any of the mood types before trying to recall the words. To induce the different moods, films that lasted about 60 seconds were shown to the partici-pants before study- and testphase. Participants were to assess their levels of excitement after each film. The results of the study showed no signs of any MDM-effect. This could indicate that there is no such effect for the studied mood types. Further research is required to narrow in the boundary condi-tions of this phenomenon and possible future setups are discussed. The method for inducing moods proved to be effective and could possibly be used in such studies.

Date of Award	2024-Jun
Original language	Swedish
Supervisor	Per Davidson (Supervisor) & Emma A. Renström (Examiner)