ABSTRACT

Can anyone doubt that the study of emotion and memory should have practical implications? Surely not those among us who have had emotional experiences and sometimes try to forget them, to remember them, or to remember other things while having them. Extreme examples include the witness to a robbery and the victim of abuse. Less dramatically but far more commonly, anxious or depressed people perform everyday acts that are memory dependent. Indeed, a practical or useful science of memory should have a great deal to say about how memory works under such emotional conditions.