Full metadata
Title
Mood Influences Working Memory Capacity
Description
Working memory is the cognitive system responsible for storing and maintaining information in short-term memory and retrieving cues from long-term memory. Working memory capacity (WMC) is needed for goal maintenance and to ignore task-irrelevant stimuli (Engle & Kane, 2003). Emotions are one type of task-irrelevant stimuli that could distract an individual from a task (Smallwood, Fitzgerald, Miles, & Phillips, 2009). There are studies that show there is a relation between emotions and working memory capacity. The direction of this relationship, though, is unclear (Kensinger, 2009). In this study, emotions served as a distractor and task performance was examined for differences in the effect of emotion depending on participants' working memory capacity. The participants watched a mood induction video, then were told to complete a complex-span working memory task. The mood induction was successful- participants watching the negative emotional video were in a less positive mood after watching the video than the participants that watched a neutral video. However, the results of the complex-span working memory task showed no significant difference in the results between participants in the negative versus neutral mood. These results may provide support to an alternative hypothesis: cognitive tasks can diminish the effects of emotions (Dillen, Heslenfeld, & Koole, 2009).
Date Created
2017-05
Contributors
- Ahmed, Sania (Author)
- Brewer, Gene (Thesis director)
- Wingert, Kimberly (Committee member)
- Blais, Chris (Committee member)
- Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Resource Type
Extent
29 pages
Language
eng
Copyright Statement
In Copyright
Primary Member of
Series
Academic Year 2016-2017
Handle
https://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.I.42496
Level of coding
minimal
Cataloging Standards
Note
A copy of this thesis/creative project may be available at Barrett, the Honors College at Arizona State University. If you would like to access the printed copy, please email thesis@asu.edu
System Created
- 2017-10-30 02:50:58
System Modified
- 2021-07-16 08:48:35
- 3 years 2 months ago
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