ABSTRACT
Thus far, we have discussed the effects of emotion on nondeclarative memory (Chapter 4) and on memory for information retained over the short term (Chapter 5). However, emotion also has robust effects on long-term declarative memory, our ability to consciously remember experiences that occurred more than a few seconds ago. In fact, the vast majority of research that has examined the effects of emotion on human memory has focused on the influence of emotion on declarative long-term memory. In the next few chapters, we examine the effects of emotion on our ability to consciously remember prior experiences from our lives. We discuss the mechanisms through which emotion enhances the likelihood of remembering information (Chapter 6), the extent to which emotion influences the subjective vividness or the objective accuracy of a memory (Chapter 7), the types of information that are more, versus less, likely to be remembered when an event contains emotional relevance (Chapter 8), and the effects that stimulus characteristics (Chapter 9) or participant characteristics (Chapter 10) can have on the effects of emotion on declarative memory ability.
