Speaker
Description
Affective working memory (AWM) refers to the ability to maintain an emotional feeling state in the absence of the eliciting stimulus. An emotion maintenance task is used to measure AWM abilities where participants view two consecutive emotional images, matching in valence but differing in intensity, after which participants decide which image evoked a more intense experience of emotion. Previous studies, for example, by Waugh and colleagues (2019), concluded that negative emotional states are more difficult to maintain, though contrasting findings exist, with other studies indicating better performance in the negative than in the positive valence condition among young adults. Further evaluation of emotion maintenance ability through analyses of intensity order by Waugh et al. (2019) showed that accuracy is lower when the first image is more intense than the second image (1>2), compared to the opposite order (2>1), especially for negative feelings. We investigate potential valence differences in AWM ability in two studies: (1) a new study that recruited a sample of young adults (N = 91) and (2) a re-analysis of existing datasets from our laboratory via meta-analyses (N = 388). In line with previous research, both studies revealed higher overall accuracy in the 2>1 condition. However, we found poorer performance in the positive valence than neutral valence, especially in the 2>1 condition. We will discuss potential explanations for our results and discuss why age could be a crucial factor in clarifying any differences between the present studies and prior research on intensity order and valence effects.
