Effect of Time Delay on Recognition Memory for Pictures: The Modulatory Role of Emotion

This study investigated the modulatory role of emotion in the effect of time delay on recognition memory for pictures. Participants viewed neutral, positive and negative pictures, and took a recognition memory test 5 minutes, 24 hours, or 1 week after learning. The findings are: 1) For neutral, positive and negative pictures, overall recognition accuracy in the 5-min delay did not significantly differ from that in the 24-h delay. For neutral and positive pictures, overall recognition accuracy in the 1-week delay was lower than in the 24-h delay; for negative pictures, overall recognition in the 24-h and 1-week delay did not significantly differ. Therefore negative emotion modulates the effect of time delay on recognition memory, maintaining retention of overall recognition accuracy only within a certain frame of time. 2) For the three types of pictures, recollection and familiarity in the 5-min delay did not significantly differ from that in the 24-h and the 1-week delay. Thus emotion does not appear to modulate the effect of time delay on recollection and familiarity. However, recollection in the 24-h delay was higher than in the 1-week delay, whereas familiarity in the 24-h delay was lower than in the 1-week delay.