People have many types of memory. Through this, memories of past situations or events are stored and retrieved, but also in many occasions physiological sensations are also recovered, and this is what is known as memory emotional. Sometimes the only thing left about a specific situation is emotional memory, while the memory of the event itself is lost. So does the body have an emotional memory? How do emotions affect our memories?
In this Psychology-Online article, we will see what is emotional memory, the different types of emotional memory there are and some examples of it, in order that we understand ourselves and what happens to us a little more.
Index
- What is emotional memory?
- Types of emotional memory
- Some examples of emotional memory
What is emotional memory?
Emotional memory consists of recovery of the physiological sensations that we had in the past faced with a situation when we experience a similar situation again. That is, when exposed to a type of event, my body will react quickly thanks to the fact that it remembers how it acted in the past in a similar situation.
Physiological sensations are automatic reactions that our body has among which we can find ourselves hyperventilation, increased heart rate, sweating, shaking, and even our body temperaturel and many others.
Evolutionary psychology justifies the existence of this type of memory as a form of Survival: If I react faster than last time to danger, I will have a better chance of survive.
Types of emotional memory.
The emotional memory to which we have referred is the one defined from the point of view of evolutionary psychology, however, there are other ways to approach this term.
It has been seen that emotional memory would also be responsible for the recovery of other types of details about a past event and not only of physiological reactions.
On the other hand, coining the similar term "affective memory" reference is made to a technique that consists of evoking memories by provoking emotionsThat is, it would be to apply the theory of emotional memory of evolutionary psychology in reverse order.
On some occasions, the initiation of the recovery of certain memories can occur through a specific detail that awakens certain emotions. This is the case with music. Through it, certain emotions can be produced that our brain ends up relating to specific memories. In this article we explain how music influences us.
Some examples of emotional memory.
There are many examples to indicate what emotional memory is, but, above all, there are two that are very common and will help us to understand this function of our brain in greater depth:
Phobias
On many occasions, something in particular is feared, such as dogs, spiders, wasps, heights... and yet we do not remember the origin of that fear. At this moment the emotional memory is acting exclusively: our body is remembering how we had to act in the past and is transferring that performance to the present, although it has omitted that situation in which we act like this for the first time.
As we can see, the physiological sensations, in the case of phobias, are usually hyperventilation, sweating and even paralysis of the body. These are the ones that our body decides to launch through emotional memory.
Remember through emotions
As we explained in the previous section, emotional memory can be started in reverse order. Surely on some occasion when you felt sad due to a specific situation, you have started to remember all kinds of painful moments from your past even if they have nothing to do with the situation current.
This time it is also the emotional memory that is acting. Through the expression of a certain emotion and certain physiological sensations, it is a lot easier to remember how other situations were in the past that made us feel the same shape.
In this article we explain the types of memory.
This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
If you want to read more articles similar to Emotional memory: what it is, types and examples, we recommend that you enter our category of Emotions.
Bibliography
- Bower, G. H. (1981). Mood and memory. American psychologist, 36(2), 129.
- D'Argembeau, A., Comblain, C., & Van der Linden, M. (2003). Phenomenal characteristics of autobiographical memories for positive, negative, and neutral events. Applied Cognitive Psychology: The Official Journal of the Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 17(3), 281-294.
- Justel, N., O'conor, J., & Rubinstein, W. (2015). Modulation of emotional memory through music in older adults: A preliminary study. Interdisciplinary, 32(2), 247-259.
- Justel, N., Psyrdellis, M., & Ruetti, E. (2013). Modulation of emotional memory: a review of the main factors that affect memories. Psychological sum, 20(2), 163-174.
- LaBar, K. S., & Cabeza, R. (2006). Cognitive neuroscience of emotional memory. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 7(1), 54-64.
- Odriozola, E. AND. (2014). Emotional modulation of memory: from traumatic experiences to biographical memories. Eguzkilore: Notebook of the Basque Institute of Criminology, (28), 169-176.
