Linda J. Levine

Music training causes long-term enhancement of preschool children’s spatial–temporal reasoning

Predictions from a structured cortical model led us to test the hypothesis that music training enhances young childrens spatial-temporal reasoning. Seventy-eight preschool children participated in this study. Thirty-four children received private piano keyboard lessons, 20 children received private computer lessons, and 24 children provided other controls. Four standard, age-calibrated, spatial reasoning tests were given before and after training; one test assessed spatial-temporal reasoning and three tests assessed spatial recognition. Significant improvement on the spatial-temporal test was found for the keyboard group only. No group improved significantly on the spatial recognition tests. The magnitude of the spatial-temporal improvement from keyboard training was greater than one standard deviation of the standardized test and lasted at least one day, a duration traditionally classified as long term. This represents an increase in time by a factor of over 100 compared to a previous study in which listening to a Mozart piano sonata primed spatial-temporal reasoning in college students. This suggests that music training produces long-term modifications in underlying neural circuitry in regions not primarily concerned with music and might be investigated using EEG. We propose that an improvement of the magnitude reported may enhance the learning of standard curricula, such as mathematics and science, that draw heavily upon spatial-temporal reasoning.

Emotion and memory narrowing: A review and goal-relevance approach

People typically show excellent memory for information that is central to an emotional event but poorer memory for peripheral details. Not all studies demonstrate memory narrowing as a result of emotion, however. Critically important emotional information is sometimes forgotten; seemingly peripheral details are sometimes preserved. To make sense of both the general pattern of findings that emotion leads to memory narrowing, and findings that violate this pattern, this review addresses mechanisms through which emotion enhances and impairs memory. Divergent approaches to characterising information as central versus peripheral are also addressed. By directly contrasting these approaches, and the evidence supporting them, this review helps to clarify when and how emotion enhances memory and provides directions for future research. Evidence shows that memory narrowing as a result of emotion, and a number of violations of the memory narrowing pattern, can be explained by the view that emotion enhances memory for information relevant to currently active goals.

Sources of Bias in Memory for Emotions

How accurately can people remember how they felt in the past? Although some investigators hold that emotional memories are resistant to change, we review evidence that current emotions, appraisals, and coping efforts, as well as personality traits, are all associated with bias in recalling past emotions. Bias occurs as memories of emotional states are updated in light of subsequent experience and goals. Biased memories in turn influence future plans and emotions, and may contribute to the formation of enduring personality traits. Peoples memories for emotions provide highly condensed and accessible summaries of the relevance of past experiences to current goals.

Reminiscence as autobiographical memory: a catalyst for reminiscence theory development

Research on the psychological outcomes of reminiscence techniques has led to equivocal findings. The goal of this paper is to advance current theory guiding research on reminiscence by examining the implications of viewing reminiscence as a type of autobiographical memory. Butlers classic paper on reminiscence as ‘life review’ (1963) is examined, and revisions to this approach are proposed based on research and theory concerning autobiographical memory. Specifically, the process of reminiscence is delineated through a discussion of the partially reconstructive nature of autobiographical memory and the relation of memory to the self. These developments are then used to predict the types of psychological outcomes that can be expected to result from reminiscence, and the types of reminiscence techniques that can be expected to lead to the distinct outcomes of self-acceptance and self-change. Linking the literatures on reminiscence techniques and autobiographical memory also provides a catalyst for future theoretical and empirical work.

The Anatomy of Disappointment: A Naturalistic Test of Appraisal Models of Sadness, Anger, and Hope

Vignette and autobiographical recall studies have often been used to test models of the appraisals associated with specific emotions. Recently, critiques of both methodologies have called into question the applicability of appraisal theory to naturally-occurring emotional responses. This study examined supporters responses to Ross Perots withdrawal from the 1992 presidential race to assess the extent to which appraisal models accurately capture responses to a naturally-occurring event. Supporters in Riverside County, California (N = 227) completed questionnaires concerning their interpretations of the event, their initial emotional reactions, changes in their reactions in the weeks immediately following Perots withdrawal, and their plans. Appraisal models correctly predicted the dimensions of agency and coping potential that served to differentiate sadness from anger, and the appraisals and plans associated with hope. Appraisal models did not predict the strong focus of sad supporters on their past goa...

Distortion in Memory for Emotions: The Contributions of Personality and Post-Event Knowledge

Undergraduates (N = 189) rated their test anxiety and emotions immediately before a midterm examination and recalled those feelings 1 week later. Students who learned they had done well on the exam underestimated, and those who learned they had done poorly overestimated, pre-exam test anxiety. Personality traits and emotional states together predicted memory distortion. Specifically, traits predicted the intensity of pre-exam states, such as test anxiety, which in turn predicted later distortion in recalling pre-exam negative and positive emotions. Also, students with positive personality traits were particularly likely to be influenced by current feelings when recalling test anxiety. Overestimating pre-midterm test anxiety predicted intentions to study more as well as feelings of unpleasantness just prior to the final exam.

Metacognitive emotion regulation: children's awareness that changing thoughts and goals can alleviate negative emotions.

Metacognitive emotion regulation strategies involve deliberately changing thoughts or goals to alleviate negative emotions. Adults commonly engage in this type of emotion regulation, but little is known about the developmental roots of this ability. Two studies were designed to assess whether 5- and 6-year-old children can generate such strategies and, if so, the types of metacognitive strategies they use. In Study 1, children described how story protagonists could alleviate negative emotions. In Study 2, children recalled times that they personally had felt sad, angry, and scared and described how they had regulated their emotions. In contrast to research suggesting that young children cannot use metacognitive regulation strategies, the majority of children in both studies described such strategies. Children were surprisingly sophisticated in their suggestions for how to cope with negative emotions and tailored their regulatory responses to specific emotional situations.

Effects of fear on risk and control judgements and memory: Implications for health promotion messages

Health promotion messages that evoke fear are often used to decrease unrealistic optimism regarding risks, convince people to control their behaviour, and make risks memorable. The relations among emotions, risk and control judgements, and memory are not well understood, however. In the current study, participants (N = 94) were assigned to fearful, angry, happy, or neutral emotion-elicitation conditions. They then rated the likelihood of experiencing 15 negative and 15 positive matched outcomes and rated their degree of control over each outcome. A surprise memory test followed. Fear decreased unrealistic optimism, but the greater the intensity of fear reported the less control participants believed they had over outcomes. Fear also led to poorer memory for outcomes. Across all participants, the lower their ratings of optimism and control concerning outcomes, the less likely they were to recall them. Implications for the use of emotionally evocative material in health promotion messages are discussed.

Emotion Regulation Strategies That Promote Learning: Reappraisal Enhances Children’s Memory for Educational Information

The link between emotion regulation and academic achievement is well documented. Less is known about specific emotion regulation strategies that promote learning. Six- to 13-year-olds (N = 126) viewed a sad film and were instructed to reappraise the importance, reappraise the outcome, or ruminate about the sad events; another group received no regulation instructions. Children viewed an educational film, and memory for this was later assessed. As predicted, reappraisal strategies more effectively attenuated childrens self-reported emotional processing. Reappraisal enhanced memory for educational details relative to no instructions. Rumination did not lead to differences in memory from the other instructions. Memory benefits of effective instructions were pronounced for children with poorer emotion regulation skill, suggesting the utility of reappraisal in learning contexts.

Looking Back on September 11, 2001: Appraised Impact and Memory for Emotions in Adolescents and Adults

This study investigated changes over time in adolescents’and parents’memories for how they felt when they learned of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Adolescents recalled having felt less negative emotion than parents did both 3 months and 8 months after the attacks. Moreover, the intensity of negative emotion recalled decreased over time for adolescents but increased for parents. Parental anxiety and stress at 3 months predicted adolescent reactions at 8 months, and there was no evidence of bidirectional effects. Adolescents (but not parents) appraised the attacks as having less impact on themselves than on others. Appraising the attacks as having less impact predicted lower recalled negative emotion and fewer posttraumatic stress symptoms. The results suggest that adolescents’tendency to view themselves as less vulnerable than others, which can lead to risky behaviors, may also serve a protective function when adolescents confront distant traumatic events.