Research Shows How Emotions Help Preserve Memories of Negative Events

Lisa Franchi April 09, 2015

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What was your first heartbreak feel like? What was the first major difficult event that you experienced so far? No matter how we try hard to erase them, these negative experiences seem to remain our mind. But it’s not because we choose not to forget them. According to new research, our emotion has the ability to transform mundane events into strong memories.

The study suggests that our emotion increases our ability to remember by affecting brain activity in regions involved in emotional processes, particularly amygdala and striatum, along with those areas involved in encoding new experiences, such as the hippocampus.

Furthermore, emotion increases the strength of one’s memory over time, through a process called “consolidation”.

The emotions we experience also play a role in the strengthening of positive memories, like special occasions.  For instance, you still remember the surprise birthday party your friends prepared for three years ago, including details like what you were wearing and who were there. Whilst these details may seem insignificant, you remember them because of the context in which they were experienced.

The new research shows that people have better memory for less significant information when it is presented in an emotional context, whether the experience was positive or negative. In the study, people remember neutral pictures if they are warned that if they forget them, they will receive a shock the next day. Likewise, being rewarded with money for remembering certain pictures the next day can boost memory for those pictures as well.

The study highlights the importance of emotion in remembering past experiences.

“We use our memory not only to remember the past, but to guide our decisions in the future. Emotion helps us remember relevant information to determine our choices. But without the ability to strengthen seemingly trivial past experiences with new important information, we might end up missing out on future rewards or repeating the same mistakes.”, the researchers wrote.