High Destination Memory for Emotionally Incongruent Information

Abstract

AbstractThis article investigates the effect of emotion on destination memory. Participants were asked to tell neutral, positive, and negative information to neutral, positive, and negative faces. Afterward, participants were asked to remember to whom each piece of information was previously told. Results demonstrated high destination memory when the positive face was associated with negative information than with positive information. Results also demonstrated high destination memory when the negative face was associated with positive information than with negative information. These findings are attributed to the emotional incongruence between information and its destination. When positive or negative information is presented, one may expect that the listener would experience the same emotional state. Violation of this expectation seems to result in a high retention of the context in which the violation has occurred and consequently in a high destination memory.