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. 2023 Nov;130(6):1421-1456.
doi: 10.1037/rev0000394. Epub 2022 Oct 6.

Mood-congruent memory revisited

Leonard Faul  1 , Kevin S LaBar  1
Affiliations

Mood-congruent memory revisited

Leonard Faul et al. Psychol Rev. 2023 Nov.

Abstract

Affective experiences are commonly represented by either transient emotional reactions to discrete events or longer term, sustained mood states that are characterized by a more diffuse and global nature. While both have considerable influence in shaping memory, their interaction can produce mood-congruent memory (MCM), a psychological phenomenon where emotional memory is biased toward content affectively congruent with a past or current mood. The study of MCM has direct implications for understanding how memory biases form in daily life, as well as debilitating negative memory schemas that contribute to mood disorders such as depression. To elucidate the factors that influence the presence and strength of MCM, here we systematically review the literature for studies that assessed MCM by inducing mood in healthy participants. We observe that MCM is often reported as enhanced accuracy for previously encoded mood-congruent content or preferential recall for mood-congruent autobiographical events, but may also manifest as false memory for mood-congruent lures. We discuss the relevant conditions that shape these effects, as well as instances of mood-incongruent recall that facilitate mood repair. Further, we provide guiding methodological and theoretical considerations, emphasizing the limited neuroimaging research in this area and the need for a renewed focus on memory consolidation. Accordingly, we propose a theoretical framework for studying the neural basis of MCM based on the neurobiological underpinnings of mood and emotion. In doing so, we review evidence for associative network models of spreading activation, while also considering alternative models informed by the cognitive neuroscience literature of emotional memory bias. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Models of Mood and Memory Note. (A) Proposed influences of induced mood on each stage of the memory process. Mood selectively enhances attention, storage, and search processes to promote biased memory for mood-congruent material. Although most MCM research focuses on encoding or retrieval congruency, mood may also shift consolidation processes in a mood-congruent manner. (B) Illustration of the associative network theory of memory and emotion proposed by Bower (1981). Happy and sad affect are depicted alongside some of their associated nodes, including expressive behaviors, autonomic responses, verbal labels (e.g., joyful/cheery or depressed/miserable) and memories for mood-congruent events. When a mood node is activated, activation will spread along these established links to neighboring nodes. Emotions with opposing valence have inhibitory connections, such that a sad mood will inhibit happiness and its associated links. (C) The Dual-Force Model from Fiedler (1991, 2002) suggests that assimilative processes transform learned input into existing knowledge structures, whereas accommodative processes facilitate attentive and accurate encoding with relatively little transformation. Positive moods signal safety and activate assimilative processes that improve performance on generative tasks, whereas negative moods signal uncertainty and activate accommodative processes that facilitate item-specific processing. (D) The Affect Infusion Model from Forgas (1995) proposes four processing strategies that can be used when making judgements, which theoretically also influences memory. Affect infusion (mood-related effects) is most likely during heuristic processing (when mood is the direct source of judgement) and substantive processing (when elaborate, generative processes assimilate information into existing knowledge structures). By contrast, affect infusion is low during direct access processing (when evaluations are made from existing, crystallized judgements) or motivational processing (when specific goals guide task engagement, such as with mood repair).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Mood Effects on Memory Note. Three different ways in which mood congruence can impact memory. (A) Example of mood-congruent memory enhancement, reproduced from Ridout et al. (2009) with permission. Mood was induced before encoding. Participants in the negative mood group exhibited improved recognition of sad faces, while no bias was observed for the positive mood group. Negative mood also improved identification of sad faces at encoding (not shown). (B) Example of mood-congruent false memory, reproduced from Bland et al. (2016) with permission. Mood was induced before encoding. The fearful mood group exhibited a bias for falsely recalling critical lures from the fear word lists, while the anger mood group exhibited a bias for falsely recalling critical lures from the anger word lists, and the control group – who experienced no mood induction – showed no bias. (C) Example of both mood-congruent and mood-incongruent memory enhancement, reproduced from Rusting and DeHart (2000) with permission. Participants completed a sentence generation task, followed by a negative mood induction via autobiographical recall. After the induction, participants were instructed to either reappraise the content of the memories that produced their negative mood, continue focusing on the negative memories, or list whatever thoughts were going through their mind (control condition). Free recall performance showed that the positive reappraisal group exhibited mood-incongruent memory only for individuals high in negative mood regulation expectancies (NMR), such that these individuals recalled a greater percentage of positive than negative words from the sentence generation task. Individuals low in NMR, however, exhibited the opposite effect. In the continued focus group, both high and low NMR participants showed mood-congruent recall – as indicated by greater recall of negative words – while the control group showed no biases.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Neural Regions Implicated in Mood-Congruent Memory in Healthy Subjects Note. Neuroimaging investigations of MCM have consistently implicated the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in facilitating memory for mood-congruent content, including the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC). Locations are marked based on the peak coordinate reported for the MCM effect (Fitzgerald et al., 2011; Lewis et al., 2005) or the site of stimulation (Bovy et al., 2020). Not shown here are the electroencephalography findings from Kiefer et al. (2007) and Egidi and Nusbaum (2012), which further demonstrate that the amplitude of the N400 event-related potential is lower for mood-congruent content due to more efficient processing.
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