After the midterm, four class sessions are devoted to theory and research on memory, emotions, and the effects of emotions on memory. The PBL case will be incorporated into this section of the course.

     Students will be asked to analyze data from an actual study to address hypotheses that they have generated concerning how emotions affect memory. The data that students will analyze comes from a longitudinal study that I conducted assessing participants' memory for the announcement of the verdict in the criminal trial of O.J. Simpson.

Students will:

MATERIAL TO BE DISTRIBUTED TO STUDENTS
AT THE END OF CLASS ON TUESDAY:

Part I
Remembering the Verdict:
Effects of Emotions on Event Memory

BACKGROUND

     Research on the effects of emotions on memory has increased dramatically in recent years, but the upshot of this body of research remains unclear. Several studies have shown that autobiographical events associated with intense emotion are recalled in greater detail than are less emotional events. A recall advantage for emotionally-arousing material over neutral material also has been shown in a number of laboratory studies. Whereas these findings suggest that emotional arousal enhances memory, the claim that emotional arousal disrupts memory also has been supported. Still other research has shown no effect of emotional arousal on recall.

     To address these inconsistencies, researchers have begun to examine differences in the types of information that people are asked to recall. Some researchers have found that emotion facilitates memory for important or "central" information at the expense of less important or "peripheral" information. Others have found that if material is congruent in tone with an individual's mood, emotional arousal may enhance recall; if incongruent, emotional arousal may lead to poorer recall.

     Although a great deal of progress has been made in specifying the conditions under which emotional arousal enhances or disrupts memory, these approaches may still be too general. People feel elated, challenged, enraged, helpless -- but they are never just "emotionally aroused." Acknowledging the diversity and functional nature of human emotions, researchers have now begun to look at the effects of specific emotions on the types of information recalled.

THE PROBLEM

     Assessing the effects of specific emotions on memory has been problematic, however, for two reasons: First, the types of events that elicit different emotions (such as happiness, anger, and sadness) typically differ dramatically. Thus, differences in memorability may be due to characteristics of the events recalled rather than to the emotions elicited by those events. Second, objective records of events that evoked intense emotions are rarely available, making assessments of memory accuracy difficult.

     These difficulties could be avoided if one could examine memory for a single, real-world event that elicited intense happiness in some individuals and intense anger or sadness in others. If the event was also recorded on videotape, the accuracy of people's memories for different types of details could be verified objectively. A few years ago, an event occurred that allowed for this kind of comparison -- the announcement of the verdict in the O.J. Simpson trial.

THE EVENT

     On October 3, 1995, Mr. Orenthal James (O.J.) Simpson was acquitted of the murders of his former wife, Mrs. Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Mr. Ron Goldman. Mr. Simpson's acquittal elicited intense happiness in some individuals and intense anger. This event thus provides a rare opportunity to contrast the effects of happiness, anger, and sadness on memory while holding the emotion-eliciting event constant. Further, the verdict announcement was broadcast on live television and covered the events that transpired in the courtroom for about 10 minutes, including the reading of the verdict and a range of actions and emotional reactions by Mr. Simpson, defense and prosecution attorneys, families of the victims, and others in attendance. Because a videotaped account of the event exists, the content and accuracy of people's memories can be assessed as a function of the type and intensity of emotions elicited.

HOMEWORK FOR THURSDAY

You have now seen a portion of the questionnaire used in a study on the effects of specific emotions on memory for the O.J. Simpson verdict. For Thursday, please write a paragraph on how you think your emotional response to the Simpson verdict may have affected your memory for the verdict announcement. You will be discussing your hypotheses about how emotions may affect memory in small groups during class on Thursday.

Written material to be distributed to students in class on Thursday:

Effects of Specific Emotions on the Memory for an Event:
Remembering the O.J. Simpson verdict (Part 2)

The study:

Participants completed questionnaires in which they recorded their memories for the events surrounding the announcement of the O.J. Simpson verdict at three points in time: one week, two months, and one year after the verdict was announced. In response to open-ended recall questions, participants described the personal circumstances in which they learned of the verdict, and for those who saw the verdict announced on television, the televised events immediately preceding and following the announcement of the verdict. Memory for televised event also was investigated using recognition questions. Following each memory question, participants' confidence in the accuracy of their memories was assessed. The questionnaires also asked participants to rate the intensities of their feelings of happiness, anger, and sadness when they first learned the verdict. Finally, the questionnaires assessed factors, other than emotion type and intensity, that would be likely to influence memory accuracy and confidence. These included participants' prior knowledge about the trial, expectations concerning the verdict, degree of surprise, appraisals concerning Mr. Simpson's innocence or guilt, current emotions, importance ratings, and rehearsal of the televised events and personal circumstances surrounding the verdict announcement.

In-class assignment:

Within your row, divide yourselves up into groups of four. Please refer to the questionnaire given to you on Tuesday. This questionnaire contained the following information: a) specific questions and a free-response question about the participant's memories of the announcement of the verdict, b) rating scales measuring the participant's emotional reaction toward the verdict, c) questions about the participant's prior expectations and opinions about the verdict, and d) recognition questions about events during the reading of the verdict that may or may not have occurred. In your course reading packet there is a portion of the actual data collected from this study -- the emotional reaction rating scales and the specific questions about the participant's memories of the announcement of the verdict. Attached to this assignment sheet is a handout on how to interpret these columns of data. Please make sure every member in your group understands which question in the questionnaire each column of data refers to. Using the knowledge that you gained from the readings that you did this weekend, your group should come up with a plan for how you might analyze these data. Keep your analyses relatively simple (e.g., using averages of group scores).

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Homework for Tuesday:

For Tuesday, you will need to do two things:

Read the articles required for Tuesday's class in your course reading packet:

1. Bower, G. H. (1981). Mood and memory. American Psychologist, 36, 129 - 148.

2. Levine, L. J., & Burgess, S. L. (1997). Beyond general arousal: Effects of specific emotions on memory. Social Cognition, 15, 157 - 181.

3. Heuer, F. & Reisburg, D. (1992). Emotion, arousal, and memory for detail. In S. Christianson (Ed.) Handbook of Emotion and Memory: Research and Theory. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Write down a hypothesis that reflects how you think the emotional reaction of the participants will affect their memory for the event. Please bring this hypothesis, your course reading packet, and your questionnaire to class on Tuesday.

TUESDAY: REFINEMENT OF HYPOTHESES AND DATA ANALYSIS, STUDY WRITE-UP

Class lecture: The first 40 minutes of class will be spent giving a lecture on the relations between emotions and memory.

Readings: Students will have been assigned 3 more articles on how emotions affect memory to be completed by this class period. The articles will give numerous examples of differing hypotheses concerning how emotions affect memory.

PBL Component: Students will be given data from the study in which participants described their memory for the verdict announcement. They will receive questionnaire data completed by 30 participants: 10 who felt extremely happy when they learned of the verdict, 10 who felt extremely angry, and 10 who did not have an emotional reaction to the verdict. Students will work in groups with the students sitting next to them. They will take 20 minutes to discuss how they can use these data to test their hypotheses about how emotions affect memory. In the last 10 minutes of class, the professor will answer questions that may have come up in during group work. Individual assignments will be due in one week.

PBL Assignment: Individual assignments will consist five double-spaced pages in which students will include the following: hypotheses, literature review, plan of analysis, results, and conclusions.

Goals:

Groups: Generating hypotheses and coming up with a plan of data analysis will be new and intimidating to many students. Having students work in groups may alleviate some anxiety, and encourage new ways of thinking about the problem, help them formulate what questions they have and what they need more information about.

Assignment: As described above, the goals of the project are (a) to give student content knowledge concerning current theory and research on how emotions affect memory; (b) to give students the opportunity to generate their own hypotheses based on their personal experience and their reading of relevant research; and (c) to give students a taste of what it is like to evaluate data to see if it is consistent or inconsistent with their hypotheses, and (d) to give students a more hands-on understanding of how psychological research can be conducted.

Written material to be distributed to students in class on Tuesday:

Effects of Specific Emotions on the Memory for an Event: Remembering the O.J. Simpson verdict (Part 3)

In-class assignment: Each person should share their hypothesis the rest of the group. As the other members of your group are sharing what they came up with, think about how their ideas could improve upon your ideas; you may even find that you want to re-do your hypotheses. Please feel free to give constructive feedback to the other group members. After each person has shared their ideas, your group should come up with a set of hypotheses that the members agree can be tested using the available data. Once your group agrees upon the hypotheses, discuss ways to examine the data to see if the hypotheses are supported or not.

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Homework for next Tuesday (one week from now):

Each person must do a five-page write-up of the study. This paper should include the following elements:

Hypothesis: Begin with a general claim about how you think happiness and anger affect memory. Then describe more specifically how you think these emotions would affect memory for the O.J. verdict announcement. (approximately 1 paragraph)

Literature review: What prior research or experience supports your claim? Please make sure to mention which article the information comes from. (approximately 1 to 2 pages)

Methods section: What research questions will you use to test your hypothesis? How will you analyze the responses to these questions? (approximately 1 page)

Results: Exactly what did you find when you examined responses to the questions listed in the methods section? (approximately 1 page)

Conclusions: What do you conclude about how happiness and anger affected memory for the verdict in the OJ Simpson trial? (approximately 1 page)

*** PLEASE NOTE: PAPER WILL BE DUE ONE WEEK FROM TODAY (TUESDAY)***