To find out more about emotions and memory
- Here’s a research overview about the role of emotion on our memory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotion_and_memory
- Here’s a very readable article by Jacek Debiec, Assistant Research Professor at the University of Michigan’s Molecular & Behavioral Neuroscience Institute, that explains, among other things, how we remember emotionally charged events and the role of the amygdala in helping us respond to threats we’re not even consciously aware of. Incidentally, don’t be put off by the attention-grabbing title of the article… traumatic memories CAN be changed, as the article explains:https://labblog.uofmhealth.org/lab-report/a-traumatic-memory-can-be-near-impossible-to-shake
- And here’s a rather academic overview of research in the area of emotions and memory… in case you really want to get into the detail. I lost myself for a long time here: https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn1825
- Here’s a specific research study by Jennifer Talarico, Kevin LaBar and David Rubin from the Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, about how the intensity of emotion influences how we remember things: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15813494/
- And here’s a neat little study from the Max Plank Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (2019), which shows how ‘our brain stores memories of experiences in a temporally organised way’ (i.e. linking them together according to when they happened): https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/08/190806164204.htm
- I’ve already mentioned this fascinating interview with Joseph LeDoux, Professor of neuroscience and psychology at New York University, where he explains how emotion amplifies memory: http://bigthink.com/videos/big-think-interview-with-joseph-ledoux
- Daniel Goleman (2020) “Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ”, Bloomsbury Publishing. Chapter 2 has a very clear explanation of how emotions impact memory and the role of the amygdala, as identified by Joseph LeDoux in his pioneering brain imagining work.
- And here’s a really interesting website that has lots of information about how emotions affect learning: https://www.thelearningcode.com/understanding-the-learning-code-24-new-build/
- Here’s a readable overview of ‘Involuntary autobiographical memory’ i.e. memories that come back to us automatically, triggered by something we see, hear, think or feel, from the Psychologist, the journal of the British Psychological Society: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287470584_Involuntary_autobiographical…
- ‘Social Cognition – Making Sense of People’ (1999) by Ziva Kunda is a readable book that provides an overview of Social Cognition research. Chapter 5 sheds light on how and why our emotions and beliefs can affect our memory of past events (e.g. pages 191-193). You can dip into the book here:https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Social-Cognition-Making-Sense-People/dp/0262611430
- If you’d like to find out more about the work of Professor Daniel Kahneman, here is a review of his work and career: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Kahneman
- Here’s some information about Professor Kahneman’s fascinating 2011 book ‘Thinking Fast and Slow’: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow And you can dip into it here:
https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0141033576