Jerome L. Rekart, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Psychology

Director, Behavioral Science Laboratory

There are currently several projects underway that examine how emotions and arousal influence the long-term storage of declarative information.

This project is determining whether arousal is simply “general (physiological) activation”, as is commonly assumed in memory research, or if there are in fact multiple dimensions (i.e. energetic and tense arousal) that may differentially modulate and contribute to long-term memory storage.

 

Disgust is viewed by many researchers as a “basic” emotion, suggesting that, like fear, it is an unlearned, instinctual reaction to specific stimuli.  What is unclear, is whether stimuli that are viewed as “disgusting” are physiologically arousing in the same manner, and thus enjoy preferential memory storage, as fearful stimuli do.  Our laboratory’s research, which is spearheaded by graduate student Nichole Ferguson, aims to determine what effect, if any, disgusting stimuli have upon memory.

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It is well-known that “arousing” words are remembered better than “non-arousing” words.  What is not known, however, is whether this memory enhancement can extend to words in close proximity.  We are thus examining whether arousing adjective and adverbs affect the memory for the nouns and concepts that they modify. 

Dimensions of Arousal

Effects of Evoked Disgust on Information Storage

Arousal-Mediated Memory Binding

Behavioral Science Laboratory Projects