The effects of emotion on memory: an investigation of attentional bias.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of emotion on memory. It has been theorized that an attentional bias for emotional stimuli is a component of a variety of anxiety disorders. Previous tasks used to investigate this process, such as the modified Stroop task, may have contained confounds that limit conclusions that can be drawn. This study used a free recall memory task to clarify the effects of attentional biases on the processing of emotionally threatening material. Participants were screened on their reported fear of spiders and tested for their recall of "spider," and the word following it in a list. Participants, regardless of their spider fear classification, recalled the word "spider" at a much higher rate, and recalled the word following it at a much lower rate. Results of follow-up studies were consistent with the original findings.