Title: The role of emotion in memory | About memory
Headings: The role of emotion in memory
The role of emotion in memory
The effect of emotional content
The effect of mood
Brain regions involved in the emotion-memory interaction
The relationship between emotion and attention
How do emotions affect memory?
Age and gender differences
References:

Content: However, accurate expression of emotion does seem to require considerable expertise (if the emotion is not, in fact, being felt) - people are very good at distinguishing false expressions of emotion. The way people go about controlling their reactions to emotional events does seem to affect their memory of the event. People shown a video of an emotional event and instructed not to let their emotions show were found to have a poorer memory for what was said and done than did those who were given no such instructions. However, as with emotional content, we cannot simply say that emotional state affects memory. The nature of the emotion being felt is also important. And this, too, is not straightforward. We cannot simply say, for example, that anxiety impairs memory and happiness improves it. A small study in which participants performed difficult cognitive tasks after watching short videos designed to elicit one of three emotional states ( pleasant, neutral or anxious), found that mild anxiety improved performance on some tasks, but hurt performance on others. Similarly, being in a pleasant mood boosted some kinds of performance but impaired other kinds. This may have something to do with different emotions being involved with different brain regions.