Emotional intensity produces a linear relationship on conditioned learning but an inverted U-shaped effect on episodic memory.

ABSTRACT: Emotional intensity can produce both optimal and suboptimal effects on learning and memory. While emotional events tend to be better remembered, memory performance can follow an inverted U-shaped curve with increasing intensity. The strength of Pavlovian conditioning tends to increase linearly with the intensity of the aversive outcome, but leads to greater stimulus generalization. Here, we combined elements of episodic memory and Pavlovian conditioning into a single paradigm to investigate the effects of varying outcome intensities on conditioned fear responses and episodic memory. Participants encoded trial-unique images from two semantic categories as conditioned stimuli (CS⁺ and CS^-) before (preconditioning), during, and after (extinction) acquisition. We systemat

SUBMITTER: Ouyang L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11662143 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature